Projects per year
Abstract / Description of output
Background
A structural magnetic resonance imaging measure of combined neurovascular and neurodegenerative burden may be useful as these features often coexist in older people, stroke and dementia.
Aim
We aimed to develop a new automated approach for quantifying visible brain injury from small vessel disease and brain atrophy in a single measure, the brain health index.
Materials and methods
We computed brain health index in N = 288 participants using voxel-based Gaussian mixture model cluster analysis of T1, T2, T2*, and FLAIR magnetic resonance imaging. We tested brain health index against a validated total small vessel disease visual score and white matter hyperintensity volumes in two patient groups (minor stroke, N = 157; lupus, N = 51) and against measures of brain atrophy in healthy participants (N = 80) using multiple regression. We evaluated associations with Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Exam Revised in patients and with reaction time in healthy participants.
Results
The brain health index (standard beta = 0.20–0.59, P < 0.05) was significantly and more strongly associated with Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Exam Revised, including at one year follow-up, than white matter hyperintensity volume (standard beta = 0.04–0.08, P > 0.05) and small vessel disease score (standard beta = 0.02–0.27, P > 0.05) alone in both patient groups. Further, the brain health index (standard beta = 0.57–0.59, P < 0.05) was more strongly associated with reaction time than measures of brain atrophy alone (standard beta = 0.04–0.13, P > 0.05) in healthy participants.
Conclusions
The brain health index is a new image analysis approach that may usefully capture combined visible brain damage in large-scale studies of ageing, neurovascular and neurodegenerative disease.
Original language | English |
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Journal | International Journal of Stroke |
Early online date | 19 Apr 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 19 Apr 2018 |
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Understanding the Role of the Perivascular Space in Cerebral Small Vessel Disease
1/01/17 → 31/12/23
Project: Research
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Quantification of vascular disease burden to stratify dementia for diagnosis and care management
Valdes Hernandez, M. & Wardlaw, J.
1/04/15 → 31/03/17
Project: Research Collaboration with external organisation