title: [Characteristics of cognitive impairment in patients with leukoaraiosis].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore the characteristics of cognitive impairment in patients with leukoaraiosis (LA).
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty-six LA patients and 38 age and gender-matched healthy subjects were recruited from the Department of Neurology, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University between September 2010 and March 2011. All participants underwent the neuropsychological tests recommended by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke-Canadian Stroke Network Vascular Cognitive Impairment Harmonization Standards (NINDS/CSN). The were divided into 3 different groups (mild, moderate and severe) according to the Fazekas scale. The differences of neuropsychological performances were compared among 3 groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The LA patients were associated with comprehensive cognitive function deficits, including MMSE (24.4 ± 3.2 vs 28.3 ± 1.2), MoCA (20.4 ± 3.0 vs 26.2 ± 0.8), digital span forward (5.7 ± 0.9 vs 6.8 ± 1.0), digital span backward (3.5 ± 0.7 vs 4.1 ± 0.7), Stroop-B (69 ± 13 vs 43 ± 5), Stroop-C (141 ± 42 vs 65 ± 10), trail making test-A (73 ± 15 vs 31 ± 7), trail making test-B (126 ± 18 vs 82 ± 6) and digit symbol test (25 ± 6 vs 37 ± 5, P < 0.05). However, there was no difference in the performance of verbal fluency (12.7 ± 2.5 vs 13.4 ± 2.5, P > 0.05). Correlation analysis showed that the severity of LA had a negative correlation with the performance of MoCA (r = -0.601, P = 0.002).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The LA patients are closely correlated with cognitive impairments of attention, memory, executive function and information processing speed. It may be attributed to the frontal-subcortical circuitry dysfunction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100020, China.
authors.forename: Jun-liang
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Shuang-kun
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Xiao-juan
authors.initials: XJ
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Shu-juan
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.forename: Wen-li
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Hu
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D049292:Leukoaraiosis / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests