Correlates of memory function in community-dwelling elderly: The importance of white matter hyperintensities

Abstract

We sought to identify magnetic resonance-(MR)-imaged structures associated with declarative memory in a community-dwelling sample of elderly Mexican-American individuals with a spectrum of cognitive decline. Measured structures were the hemispheric volumes of the hippocampus (HC), parahippocampal gyrus, and remaining temporal lobes, as well as severity of white matter signal hyperintensities (WMH). Participants were an imaged subsample from the Sacramento Area Latino Study of Aging (SALSA), N 5 122. Individuals were categorized as normal, memory impaired (MI), cognitively impaired non-demented (CIND), or demented. We show that WMH was the strongest structural predictor for performance on a delayed free-recall task (episodic memory) in the entire sample. The association of WMH with delayed recall was most prominent in elderly normals and mildly cognitively impaired individuals with no dementia or impairment of daily function. However, the left HC was associated with verbal delayed recall only in people with dementia. The right HC volume predicted nonverbal semantic-memory performance. We conclude that WMH are an important pathological substrate that affects certain memory functions in normal individuals and those with mild memory loss and discuss how tasks associated with WMH may rely upon frontal lobe function. (JINS, 2004, 10, 371-381.)

White matter degeneration in subjective cognitive decline: a diffusion tensor imaging study

“…DTI findings had strong associations with AVLT scores, suggesting that WM microstructure alterations may contribute to memory impairment across the patient groups. Our correlation results across the NC and SCD groups support the idea that WM impairment is the strongest structural predictor of delayed recall score, especially in the early stages of AD [38]. Previous studies suggested that the delayed recall test best discriminates early AD and predicts conversion to AD [39, 40].…”

Do symptoms of memory impairment correspond to cognitive impairment: a cross sectional study of a clinical cohort

“…This may again point to heterogeneity within this group, with some individuals in the earliest stages of AD and others who are anxious regarding their memory but well. Volume of white matter hyper-intensities has also been found to correlate with cognitive impairment (Petkov et al, 2004). The absence of this finding in our study may be a reflection of our exclusion criteria leading to a group relatively free of white matter disease.…”

Retrieval of autobiographical memory in Alzheimer's disease: Relation to volumes of medial temporal lobe and other structures

“…All analyses were performed using gray matter volumes because gray matter volume changes have been found to be predictive of episodic memory performance in dementia patients (Petkov et al, 2004), as opposed to white matter hyperintensities, which were predictive of episodic memory performance only in healthy older adults. However, we also performed the analyses using white matter volumes.…”