Association of white matter integrity and cognitive functions in patients with subcortical silent lacunar infarcts.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Silent lacunar infarct (SLI) is a risk factor for dementia. This study investigated the white matter integrity abnormality and its relationship to the cognition impairments in SLI patients. METHODS Between 27 patients with SLI in basal ganglia and 30 healthy controls, we assessed the difference in a batter of neuropsychological tests and in white matter integrity measurements, fractional anisotropy, and mean diffusivity, using tract-based spatial statistics. RESULTS Compared with healthy controls, SLI patients performed worse in general mental status, memory, executive function, and language ability. They also had reduced fractional anisotropy and increase mean diffusivity in brain regions such as the body and genu of corpus callosum, the forceps minor, the bilateral superior and bilateral anterior corona radiate, and the left external capsule. Furthermore, we found that in SLI patients, fractional anisotropy measure in left external capsule was positively correlated to the performance in memory and language ability. CONCLUSIONS SLI in basal ganglia leads to local and remote white matter integrity damages and to the cognition impairments.