Vascular volume and blood-brain barrier permeability measured by dynamic contrast enhanced MRI in hippocampus and cerebellum of patients with MCI and normal controls.
OBJECTIVE
To measure the cerebrovascular volume and blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability indices in hippocampus and cerebellum of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI), and compare to that of normal controls.


METHODS
A total of 11 MCI subjects and 11 healthy elderly controls participated in this prospective study. DCE-MRI was performed to measure the contrast enhancement kinetics. The early enhancement percentage (at 50 seconds after injection) was defined as the vascular volume index, and the ratio between the four to five-minute enhancement relative to the 50-second enhancement was defined as the BBB permeability index.


RESULTS
The enhancement kinetics measured from hippocampus of MCI individuals demonstrated a lower magnitude and slower decay than healthy controls, suggesting that they had a smaller vascular volume (significant in the right side; P <0.001) and a higher BBB permeability (not reaching significance level). The vascular volume index was significantly correlated with naming ability (P 0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that changes in cerebrovasculature may occur in hippocampus of MCI. DCE-MRI may provide a noninvasive means to measure the subtle BBB leakage associated with the cerebrovascular pathology commonly found in Alzheimer's disease.
Wang
Huali
H
Tu and Yuen Center for Functional Onco-Imaging and Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-5020, USA.
Golob
Edward J
EJ
Su
Min-Ying
MY
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology; D001812:Blood-Brain Barrier; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000473:pathology*; D003071:Cognition; D003287:Contrast Media / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007700:Kinetics; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D010539:Permeability
D003287:Contrast Media