Open AccessAssociation between white matter hyperintensity load and grey matter atrophy in mild cognitive impairment is not unidirectional
Author(s) -
Ashwati Vipin,
Benjamin Wong,
Dilip Kumar,
Audrey Low,
Kok Pin Ng,
Nagaendran Kandiah
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
aging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 90
ISSN - 1945-4589
DOI - 10.18632/aging.202977
Subject(s) - hyperintensity , grey matter , white matter , association (psychology) , cognitive impairment , atrophy , medicine , cognition , cardiology , physical medicine and rehabilitation , psychology , neuroscience , magnetic resonance imaging , radiology , psychotherapist
Neuroimaging measures of Alzheimer's disease (AD) include grey matter volume (GMV) alterations in the Default Mode Network (DMN) and Executive Control Network (ECN). Small-vessel cerebrovascular disease, often visualised as white matter hyperintensities (WMH) on MRI, is often seen in AD. However, the relationship between WMH load and GMV needs further examination. We examined the load-dependent influence of WMH on GMV and cognition in 183 subjects. T1-MRI data from 93 Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and 90 cognitively normal subjects were studied and WMH load was categorized into low, medium and high terciles. We examined how differing loads of WMH related to whole-brain voxel-wise and regional DMN and ECN GMV. We further investigated how regional GMV moderated the relationship between WMH and cognition. We found differential load-dependent effects of WMH burden on voxel-wise and regional atrophy in only MCI. At high load, as expected WMH negatively related to both ECN and DMN GMV, however at low load, WMH positively related to ECN GMV. Additionally, negative associations between WMH and memory and executive function were moderated by regional GMV. Our results demonstrate non-unidirectional relationships between WMH load, GMV and cognition in MCI.