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The association between white matter hyperintensities, cognition and regional neural activity in healthy subjects
Author(s) -
Porcu Michele,
Cocco Luigi,
Cocozza Sirio,
Pontillo Giuseppe,
Operamolla Annunziata,
Defazio Giovanni,
Suri Jasjit S.,
Brunetti Arturo,
Saba Luca
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
european journal of neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.346
H-Index - 206
eISSN - 1460-9568
pISSN - 0953-816X
DOI - 10.1111/ejn.15403
Subject(s) - hyperintensity , neurocognitive , cognition , psychology , functional magnetic resonance imaging , precuneus , audiology , white matter , resting state fmri , effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance , brain activity and meditation , association (psychology) , neural correlates of consciousness , neuroscience , magnetic resonance imaging , medicine , electroencephalography , radiology , psychotherapist
White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are common findings that can be found in physiological ageing. Several studies suggest that the disruption of white matter tracts included in WMH could induce abnormal functioning of the respective linked cortical structures, with consequent repercussion on the cerebral functions, included the cognitive sphere. In this cross‐sectional research, we analysed the effects of the total WMH burden (tWMHb) on resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs‐fMRI) and cognition. Functional and structural MR data, as well as the scores of the trail making test subtests A (TMT‐A) and B (TMT‐B) of 75 healthy patients, were extracted from the public available Leipzig Study for Mind–Body–Emotion Interactions dataset. tWMHb was extracted from structural data. Spearman's correlation analyses were made for investigating correlations between WMHb and the scores of the cognitive tests. The fractional amplitude of low‐frequency fluctuations (fALFF) method was applied for analysing the rs‐fMRI data, adopting a multiple regression model for studying the effects of tWMHb on brain activity. Three different subanalyses were conducted using different statistical methods. We observed statistically significant correlations between WMHb and the scores of the cognitive tests. The fALFF analysis revealed that tWMHb is associated with the reduction of regional neural activity of several brain areas (in particular the prefrontal cortex, precuneus and cerebellar crus I/II). We conclude that our findings clarify better the relationships between WMH and cognitive impairment, evidencing that tWMHb is associated with impairments of the neurocognitive function in healthy subjects by inducing a diffuse reduction of the neural activity.