Decreased Basal Ganglia Volume in Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy
Abstract
Background and Purpose Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is a common pathology of the leptomeningeal and cortical small vessels associated with hemorrhagic and non-hemorrhagic brain injury. Given previous evidence for CAA-related loss of cortical thickness and white matter volume, we hypothesized that CAA might also cause tissue loss in the basal ganglia.Methods We compared basal ganglia volumes expressed as a percentage of total intracranial volume (pBGV) of non-demented patients with sporadic and hereditary CAA to age-matched healthy control (HC) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) cohorts.Results Patients with sporadic CAA had lower pBGV (n=80, 1.16%±0.14%) compared to HC (n=80, 1.30%±0.13%, P<0.0001) and AD patients (n=80, 1.23%±0.11%, P=0.001). Similarly, patients with hereditary CAA demonstrated lower pBGV (n=25, 1.26%±0.17%) compared to their matched HC (n=25, 1.36%±0.15%, P=0.036). Using a measurement of normalized basal ganglia width developed for analysis of clinical-grade magnetic resonance images, we found smaller basal ganglia width in patients with CAA-related lobar intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH; n=93, 12.35±1.47) compared to age-matched patients with hypertension-related deep ICH (n=93, 13.46±1.51, P<0.0001) or HC (n=93, 15.45±1.22, P<0.0001). Within the sporadic CAA research cohort, decreased basal ganglia volume was independently correlated with greater cortical gray matter atrophy (r=0.45, P<0.0001), increased basal ganglia fractional anisotropy (r=–0.36, P=0.001), and worse performance on language processing (r=0.35, P=0.003), but not with cognitive tests of executive function or processing speed.Conclusions These findings suggest an independent effect of CAA on basal ganglia tissue loss, indicating a novel mechanism for CAA-related brain injury and neurologic dysfunction.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- May 31, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.5853/jos.2020.04280
Entities
People
- Anand Viswanathan
- Andreas Charidimou
- Andrew D. Warren
- Jeroen Van Der Grond
- Jonathan Rosand
- Kristin M. Schwab
- M. Edip Gurol
- Marco Pasi
- Mark A. Van Buchem
- Panagiotis Fotiadis
- Steven M. Greenberg
- The Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative*
Organizations
- Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
- National Institute on Aging
- United States Department of Defense