A narrative review of multimodal imaging of white matter lesions in type-2 diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Objective: To discuss the relevant studies about the structural and functional changes of the brain in patients with type-2 DM (T2DM) and white matter lesion (WML) in recent years, and to summarize them.Background: T2DM is a common metabolic disease with increasing prevalence worldwide. This disease is closely related to central nervous system and vascular disease, and is considered a risk factor for white matter lesions in the brain. Compared to healthy individuals, WML patients with T2DM exhibit changes in brain perfusion, functional networks, nerve fiber structure, and brain tissue metabolism. Methods:We analyzed recent studies related to structural and functional changes in the brain of patients suffering from T2DM and WML and summarized them.Conclusions: Multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) utilizes noninvasive and sensitive imaging techniques to provide multiparametric information in patients with T2DM to help in clinical practice. It features non-invasively and with high sensitivity assess the histomorphological and functional abnormalities of white matter in patients with T2DM using various parameters. We can use multimodal MRI methods to reflect the microscopic damage of neuromyelin structures and pathological changes of neuronal metabolic functions in WML in T2DM patients, and thus speculate the disease progression. This approach can be helpful for the early diagnosis and treatment of patients with such a disease who do not exhibit neurological deficit, to effectively improve their prognosis.