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The onset of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is accompanied by a complex and distributed pattern of neuroanatomic change, difficult to distinguish clinically from dynamic alterations in normal aging. Extreme variations in the sulcal patterns of the human cortex have made it difficult to identify diffuse and focal variations in cortical structure in neurodegenerative disease. We report the first comprehensive 3D statistical analysis of deep sulcal structure in vivo, in both normal aging and dementia. High-resolution 3D T1-weighted fast SPGR (spoiled GRASS) MRI volumes were acquired from 10 patients diagnosed with AD (NINCDS-ARDRA criteria; age: 71.9 +/- 10.7 years) and 10 normal subjects matched for age (72.9 +/- 5.6 years), gender, educational level and handedness. Scans were digitally transformed into Talairach stereotaxic space. To determine specific patterns of cortical variation in dementia patients, 3D …