[Characteristics of cognitive impairment in patients with leukoaraiosis]

To explore the characteristics of cognitive impairment in patients with leukoaraiosis (LA).

Forty-six LA patients and 38 age and gender-matched healthy subjects were recruited from the Department of Neurology, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University between September 2010 and March 2011. All participants underwent the neuropsychological tests recommended by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke-Canadian Stroke Network Vascular Cognitive Impairment Harmonization Standards (NINDS/CSN). The were divided into 3 different groups (mild, moderate and severe) according to the Fazekas scale. The differences of neuropsychological performances were compared among 3 groups.

The LA patients were associated with comprehensive cognitive function deficits, including MMSE (24.4 ± 3.2 vs 28.3 ± 1.2), MoCA (20.4 ± 3.0 vs 26.2 ± 0.8), digital span forward (5.7 ± 0.9 vs 6.8 ± 1.0), digital span backward (3.5 ± 0.7 vs 4.1 ± 0.7), Stroop-B (69 ± 13 vs 43 ± 5), Stroop-C (141 ± 42 vs 65 ± 10), trail making test-A (73 ± 15 vs 31 ± 7), trail making test-B (126 ± 18 vs 82 ± 6) and digit symbol test (25 ± 6 vs 37 ± 5, P < 0.05). However, there was no difference in the performance of verbal fluency (12.7 ± 2.5 vs 13.4 ± 2.5, P > 0.05). Correlation analysis showed that the severity of LA had a negative correlation with the performance of MoCA (r = -0.601, P = 0.002).

The LA patients are closely correlated with cognitive impairments of attention, memory, executive function and information processing speed. It may be attributed to the frontal-subcortical circuitry dysfunction.