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Updated: Mar 9, 2026
Evaluation of the Cognitive Performance of Hypertensive Patients with Silent Cerebrovascular Lesions
Published on: April 23, 2021
White Matter Hyperintensity Associations with Cerebral Blood Flow in Elderly Subjects Stratified by Cerebrovascular
Ahmed A Bahrani1, David K Powell2, Guoquiang Yu3
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky; Department of Biomedical Engineering, AL-Khwarizmi College of Engineering, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq.
Objective:
This study aims to add clarity to the relationship between deep and periventricular brain white matter hyperintensities (WMHs), cerebral blood flow (CBF), and cerebrovascular risk in older persons.
Methods:
Deep white matter hyperintensity (dWMH) and periventricular white matter hyperintensity (pWMH) and regional gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) blood flow from arterial spin labeling were quantified from magnetic resonance imaging scans of 26 cognitively normal elderly subjects stratified by cerebrovascular disease (CVD) risk. Fluid-attenuated inversion recovery images were acquired using a high-resolution 3-dimensional (3-D) sequence that reduced partial volume effects seen with slice-based techniques.
Results:
dWMHs but not pWMHs were increased in patients at high risk of CVD; pWMHs but not dWMHs were associated with decreased regional cortical (GM) blood flow. We also found that blood flow in WM is decreased in regions of both pWMH and dWMH, with a greater degree of decrease in pWMH areas.
Conclusions:
WMHs are usefully divided into dWMH and pWMH regions because they demonstrate differential effects. 3-D regional WMH volume is a potentially valuable marker for CVD based on associations with cortical CBF and WM CBF.
