A Voxel-based Morphometric Analysis of Cerebral Gray Matter in Subcortical Ischemic Vascular Dementia Patients and Normal Aged Controls

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The present study was designed to detect the abnormalities of the cerebral grey-matter density in subcortical ischemic vascular dementia patients by FSL-VBM method to promote the early diagnosis of it. METHODS Nine subcortical ischemic vascular dementia patients and nine age-matched normal controls underwent MRI brain structure scanning that was performed on a SIEMENS AVANTO 1.5 Tesla scanner and standard T1-weighted high-resolution anatomic scans of MPRAGE sequence were obtained. The 3-demensional MPRAGE images were processed with FSL-VBM package and the cerebral gray matter density was compared between the subcortical ischemic vascular dementia patients and normal controls. RESULTS Compared with the normal control group, the cerebral gray matter density of subcortical ischemic vascular dementia patients was found significantly decreasing, including brain regions of thalamus, parietal lobe, frontal lobe and temporal lobe (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS The cerebral gray matter density alterations have closed correlation with cognitive dysfunction in subcortical ischemic vascular dementia patient and can be detected by MRI. MRI has some potential value in the diagnosis of them.