Abstract
PURPOSE: To examine relationships between brain white matter hyperintensities depicted at magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and performance on neuropsychologic tests in community-dwelling elderly adults.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: The 1921 Aberdeen Birth Cohort is a subsample of survivors of the Scottish Mental Survey of 1932 whose mental ability was tested at 11 years of age. Ninety-five of these subjects agreed to undergo brain MR imaging, an examination of general health, and a neuropsychologic evaluation. White matter hyperintensities detected at T2-weighted MR imaging were rated by using a semi-quantitative method yielding two continuous variables: white matter lesions and periventricular lesions. Cognitive ability, including crystallized and fluid intelligence domains, was assessed with standard neuropsychologic tests.
RESULTS: Rating scores of white matter lesions were normally distributed (on a devised scale) with means of 1.14 for white matter lesions and 1.28 for periventricular lesions. Intra- and interobserver reliability coefficients for scores were high, generally above 0.7. There were significant correlations of medium effect size between the T2-weighted MR imaging-depicted white matter lesions and performance on tests of fluid-type intelligence. No significant correlation was demonstrated between white matter lesion ratings and tests of crystallized intelligence.
CONCLUSION: Lower fluid-type ("prevailing") intelligence test scores were associated with increased severity of white matter lesion ratings but not crystallized type ("remorbid") intelligence test scores. This indicates that MR imaging-depicted white matter lesions are of clinical importance.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 51-55 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | European Radiology |
Volume | 221 |
Issue number | 1 |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2001 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- aging
- brain, atrophy
- brain, function
- brain, MR
- brain, white matter
- VISUAL RATING-SCALES
- RISK-FACTORS
- SIGNAL HYPERINTENSITIES
- CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH
- COGNITIVE FUNCTION
- NORMAL INDIVIDUALS
- BLOOD-PRESSURE
- FOLLOW-UP
- AGE
- ROTTERDAM