White matter integrity and cortical metabolic associations in aging and dementia

Kuczynski, Beth; Targan, Elizabeth; Madison, Cindee; Weiner, Michael; Zhang, Yu; Reed, Bruce; Chui, Helena C.; Jagust, William

doi:10.1016/j.jalz.2009.04.1228

« Previous Next »Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association
Volume 6, Issue 1 , Pages 54-62, January 2010

White matter integrity and cortical metabolic associations in aging and dementia

Beth Kuczynski
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
- Corresponding author. Tel.: 925-708-0560; Fax: 510-642-3192.
Elizabeth Targan
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
Cindee Madison
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
Michael Weiner
- Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
Yu Zhang
- Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
Bruce Reed
- Alzheimer's Center and Northern California Veterans Affairs Health Care System, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA, USA
Helena C. Chui
- Department of Neurology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
William Jagust
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

Abstract

Background

Studies show that white matter hyperintensities, regardless of location, primarily affect frontal lobe metabolism and function. This report investigated how regional white matter integrity (measured as fractional anisotropy [FA]) relates to brain metabolism, to unravel the complex relationship between white matter changes and brain metabolism.

Objective

To elucidate the relationship between white matter integrity and gray matter metabolism using diffusion tensor imaging and fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography in a cohort of 16 subjects ranging from normal to demented (age, >55 years).

Methods

Mean FA values from white matter regions underlying the medial prefrontal, inferior-lateral prefrontal, parietal association, and posterior temporal areas and the corpus callosum were regressed with glucose metabolism (by positron emission tomography), using statistical parametric mapping (P < 0.005; voxel cluster, >100). Regional cerebral glucose metabolism was the primary outcome measure. According to our hypothesis, those hypometabolic cortical regions affected by Alzheimer's disease would correlate with a lower FA of associated tracks.

Results

Our data show inter-regional positive correlations between FA and gray matter metabolism for the prefrontal cortex, temporal, and parietal regions. Our results suggest that left prefrontal FA is associated with left temporal and parietal metabolism. Further, left posterior temporal FA correlated with left prefrontal metabolism. Finally, bilateral parietal FA correlated with bilateral temporal metabolism.

Conclusions

These regions are associated with cognitive processes affected in Alzheimer's disease and cerebrovascular disease, suggesting a link with white matter degeneration and gray matter hypometabolism. Therefore, cortical function and white matter degeneration are related in aging and dementia.

Keywords: PET, DTI, FA, Metabolism, White matter, Dementia, Alzheimer's disease