Reduced volumes of the CA1 and CA4-dentate gyrus hippocampal subfields in systemic lupus erythematosus

Abstract

Introduction There is evidence for hippocampal dysfunctions in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), which may contribute to neuropsychiatric impairments. However, fine structural alterations of the hippocampus have not been investigated in SLE. Methods We measured the volume of hippocampal subfields in 18 SLE patients and 20 healthy control individuals matched for age, gender, and education. The MRI protocol included structural T1 volumes (Philips Achieva 3T scanner, magnetization-prepared rapid acquisition gradient echo (MPRAGE)). For image processing, we used the neuGRID platform and the longitudinal pipeline of FreeSurfer v6.0 with the "hipposubfields" flag. Results Patients with SLE showed reduced volumes of CA1 (Cornu Ammonis 1) and CA4-dentate gyrus subfields relative to the control individuals. Smaller CA1 volumes were associated with worse performance on the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination. Conclusions These preliminary results indicate a prominent vulnerability and functional relevance of the CA1 hippocampal subfield in SLE.

Metabolic and microstructural alterations in the SLE brain correlate with cognitive impairment

“…Hippocampal abnormalities have been well described in SLE patients and animal models. In human SLE, hippocampal atrophy, presumably reflective of neuronal loss, has been correlated with cognitive deficits (38,(44)(45)(46)(47)(48) as well as specific autoantibodies, including DNRAb (44,49). Our findings of reproducible hippocampal hypermetabolism with functional correlates extend these previous reports, suggesting an SLE-mediated attack on the hippocampus.…”

Cognitive dysfunction in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: The challenge in diagnosis and management

“…16,77 Patients with SLE showed reduced volume of CA1 compared to healthy controls and small CA1 volume was associated with cognitive dysfunction. 78 Amygdala is continuous with the tail of caudate nucleus and produces fear response and emotion. 16 Watson et al 12 highlighted the relationship between anti-NMDAR Abs and amygdala dysfunction in animal model of lupus.…”

FreeSurfer based segmentation of hippocampal subfields: a review of methods and applications, with a novel quality control procedure for ENIGMA studies and other collaborative efforts

“…Prediabetes (Dong et al, 2019) primary biliary cholangitis (Mosher et al, 2018), systemic lupus erythematosus (Bódi et al, 2017) Transdiagnostic approach Psychosis spectrum (Francis et al, 2013;Mathew et al, 2014;Haukvik et al, 2015;Vargas et al, 2017), unipolar-bipolar spectrum in adults (Cao et al, 2017;Han et al, 2019) or children and adolescents (Tannous et al, 2018) Bipolar disease and schizophrenia (pooling different subfield methods) (Haukvik et al, 2018).…”