The neuropsychological characteristics and regional cerebral blood flow of vascular cognitive impairment-no dementia.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the neuropsychological characteristics of VCI-ND and to analyze the relationship between deficit pattern and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in various VCI-ND subtypes defined by cognitive features.


METHODS
69 subjects diagnosed with VCI-ND were recruited, then further classified into four subtypes: amnestic VCI-ND with single memory impairment (subtype I, n = 19), amnestic VCI-ND with multi-domain impairment (subtype II, n = 27), non-amnestic VCI-ND with single domain impairment (subtype III, n = 16), and non-amnestic VCI-ND with multi-domain impairment (subtype IV, n = 7) according to their cognitive profile. Xenon-CT scan was administered to 31 VCI-ND patients (11 of subtype I, 12 of subtype II and 8 of subtype III) and 10 normal controls (NC) to evaluate rCBF.


RESULTS
The rate of different cognitive domains impairment in VCI-ND group ranged from 17 to 66%, lowest in clock drawing test and highest in time of modified version of trails making test A and maze tracing compared with NC, significant reduced rCBF was found in bilateral temporal lobe and thalamus, left periventricular white matter and caudate of subtype I, and in left temporal lobe and lenticular nucleus, bilateral periventricular white matter, white matter adjacent to left posterior horn of lateral ventricular and right caudate of subtype III, while significant reduced rCBF of subtype II was found in left subfrontal white matter, bilateral subtemporoparietal white matter, right lenticular nucleus, and in both regions of subtype I and III.


CONCLUSIONS
The manifestation of rCBF in VCI-ND subtypes was consistent with performance of neuropsychological assessment.
Cao
Xinyi
X
Department of Neurology and Institute of Neurology, Huashan Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Guo
Qihao
Q
Zhao
Qianhua
Q
Jin
Lilin
L
Fu
Jianhui
J
Hong
Zhen
Z
D000368:Aged; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D015140:Dementia, Vascular / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012039:Regional Blood Flow / Q000502:physiology; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods; D014978:Xenon
D014978:Xenon