To select the most parsimonious model that had at least as good performance as a model that used all sMRI predictors, the variable

selection method of Genuer et al. (2010) was applied. By this method, the top ranking variables that rendered the smallest mean MSE over 200 runs in their correlation with performance on each cognitive measure were chosen for interpretation. Although random forest is a GSK-3 phosphorylation relatively complicated analytic method, it is surprisingly computationally efficient. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical For the analysis in our study, each random forest run took about 19 sec, although computation time depends on the hardware and operating system. Results Cognitive measures To characterize the entire prHD Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical group, an ANCOVA tested

for group differences on each of the cognitive measures, adjusting for age, gender, years of education, and number of visits (P < 0.05, unadjusted). Figure 1 plots the means (standard deviations) for the groups on each measure. The prHD group performed significantly worse on Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical all cognitive measures (SDMT: t = −3.04, P < 0.0025; letter-number sequencing: t = −2.50, P < 0.013; HVLT-R: t = −2.09, P < 0.037; negative emotions: t = −2.58, P < 0.01; and timing: t = −3.16, P < 0.002). Figure 1 Mean (standard deviation) group performance on each of the cognitive measures. The gene-negative control group (C) performed significantly better than the prHD group on all cognitive measures (SDMT:P < 0.0025; letter-number sequencing: ... Cortical thinning and basal ganglia atrophy in prHD Figure 2 displays regions showing significant Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical mean basal ganglia volume loss and cortical thinning in the prHD group relative to the gene-negative controls. As expected, significant volume loss was found in the bilateral caudate and putamen. Cortical thinning Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical was found in 36 regions including areas of the frontal, superior and middle-temporal,

parietal, and occipital cortices of both hemispheres on the lateral and the medial surfaces. These 40 regions were used as sMRI predictors of performance in each cognitive domain. Figure 2 Regions showing significant cortical thinning and striatal atrophy in the prodromal Huntington disease (prHD) group. Bilateral caudate and putamen atrophy were found in the prHD group. however Cortical thinning was also found in 36 regions including areas of … sMRI correlates of cognitive functioning Figure 3 shows the number of the top-ranked sMRI variables that minimized the mean MSE (designated by the dotted line) for each cognitive measure. Negative emotions and SDMT performances best correlated with the highest ranked 15 and 13 sMRI variables, respectively. For the remaining cognitive variables, the 10 highest ranked sMRI variables resulted in the lowest MSE.