Do White-Matter Hyperintensities Reflect Disease Process or Underlying Susceptibility?

A comparison of the spatial distribution of white-matter hyperintensities in subjects with Alzheimer disease, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, and healthy aging shows that the pattern is not disease-specific but reflects regional variability in normal cerebral perfusion.

These investigators aimed to determine whether the topographic pattern of age- and disease-related white-matter hyperintensities (WMHs) depends primarily on the underlying clinical diagnosis or reflects regional differences in the white matter itself. They retrospectively examined the voxelwise spatial-distribution patterns of WMHs on T2 MRI or fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR)–weighted MRI in 32 patients with probable cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), 41 with probable Alzheimer disease (AD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 29 nondemented “healthy-aging” subjects (HA; mean age, 71). The authors mapped these patterns onto an atlas of normal perfusion to identify relations between brain regions affected by WMHs and the norma…

Reviewing Author

Françoise Gray, MD, PhD

Do White-Matter Hyperintensities Reflect Disease Process or Underlying Susceptibility?

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Reviewing Author