Anterior hippocampus volume loss in narcolepsy with cataplexy

Abstract

Narcolepsy with cataplexy is a lifelong disease resulting from the loss of hypocretin neurons in the hypothalamus; structural changes are not, however, limited only to the hypothalamus. We previously revealed an overall hippocampal volume loss in narcolepsy with cataplexy. The aim of this study is to describe the volume reduction of the anterior and posterior parts of the hippocampus in patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy in comparison with a control group. The anterior hippocampus is more involved in episodic memory and imagination, and the posterior hippocampus in spatial memory. Manual magnetic resonance imaging hippocampal volumetry was performed in 48 patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy and in 37 controls using the manual delineation technique in the ScanView program. All participants were examined on the same 1.5 T MR scanner; measurement was carried out as T1W 3D image with a slice thickness of 1.0/0 mm. There was a significant absolute loss of the total volume of the anterior hippocampus (sum of left and right) in patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy as compared with the controls (10.5%, p = .03 ANCOVA after correcting for total brain volume and multiple testing). We found a negative correlation between the total anterior hippocampus volume and the duration of the disease (R = −0.4036, p = .016—corrected for multiple testing).

Neuroimaging of Narcolepsy and Primary Hypersomnias

“…Significant reductions of the absolute volume of the hippocampus (Joo and others 2012; Kim and others 2016; Křečková and others 2018) and the amygdala (Brabec and others 2011; Kim and others 2016), possibly in relationship with abnormalities in emotional processing (Walker and van der Helm 2009), have been observed in patients with narcolepsy-cataplexy. Furthermore, a report using proton resonance spectroscopy in narcolepsy patients with cataplexy, revealed myoinositol decrease in the amygdala (Poryazova and others 2009).…”

Changed Cerebral White Matter Structural Network Topological Characters and Its Correlation with Cognitive Behavioral Abnormalities in Narcolepsy Type 1

“…[10][11][12] In the past decade, a series of neuroimaging studies have been conducted to study the neural mechanism of cognitive impairment related to NT1 disorders. They revealed significant abnormalities in several brain areas, including the amygdala, hippocampus, [13][14][15][16][17] thalamus, hypothalamus, cerebellar hemispheres, anterior medial temporal white matter (WM), and corpus callosum. [18][19][20] In addition, functional studies have also revealed impaired and abnormal functional connections in the executive attention network [21][22][23] of patients with NT1.…”

In vivo marker of brainstem myelin is associated to quantitative sleep parameters in healthy young men

“…MTsat may also be more directly related to the density of neurons and therefore indirectly related to myelin 49 . Other qMRI parameters depend to a lesser extent on myelin such as R2*, which is mainly driven by iron content 50 . It would be of interest to consider other qMRI quantification approaches along with MTsat as it would be to focus on other parts of the brain.…”