Radiomics approach in the neurodegenerative brain.

As claimed by Robert Gilles et al., "Images are more than pictures, they are data". This statement refers to the power of imaging to provide large amounts of quantitative features for improving diagnosis, prognosis and therapy response. The conversion of digital medical images into high-dimensional mineable data is called radiomics. Radiomics analysis is based on data-characterisation algorithms which have the potential to uncover disease heterogeneity characteristics that might escape from the expert evaluation. This method has been widely applied in oncology and genetic fields, while the literature on neurodegenerative disorders is in its relative infancy. Here, we provide a preliminary evaluation of the main results reached applying radiomics analyses on well-established MRI features of patients with Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's disease.