title: Cerebral blood flow in nondemented elderly subjects with extensive deep white matter lesions on magnetic resonance imaging.
abstract: Our previous study showed that deep white matter lesions (DWML) were associated with subtle cognitive decline in community-dwelling elderly people. However, even extensive (EXT)-DWML, found in 7 (4%) of 178 subjects aged 60 years or older, did not cause dementia. The purpose of the present study was to investigate brain circulation in nondemented elderly subjects with EXT-DWML. We compared cerebral blood flow in the deep white matter and frontal cortex between 5 subjects with EXT-DWML and 5 without such lesions, using a xenon-enhanced computed tomography (CT) method. Although the difference of deep white matter findings on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was the greatest possible (i.e., extensive v no or minimum lesions), cerebral blood flow values in anterior deep white matter and frontal cortex were 21.4 ± 5.3 standard deviation (SD) mL/100 g/minute and 42.7 ± 4.1, respectively, in subjects with extensive lesions, which were not significantly different from 24.3 ± 4.3 and 44.0 ± 7.1 in subjects without DWML. The present study suggests that EXT-DWML in nondemented elderly individuals do not necessarily indicate apparent hypoperfusion or marked cognitive decline.
authors.affiliation: Center for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, Hizen National Hospital, Saga, Japan; and the Second Department of Internal Medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yuzuriha
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fukuda
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matsumoto
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ibayashi
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Uchimura
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fujishima