1. Cerebral changes and cognitive impairment after an ischemic heart disease: a multimodal MRI study
- Author
-
Charlotte Bernard, Sylvain Ledure, Saioa Lassalle-Lagadec, Gwénaëlle Catheline, Igor Sibon, Michèle Allard, Dorothée Callaert, Bixente Dilharreguy, and Thierry Couffinhal
- Subjects
Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Acute coronary syndrome ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Rest ,030204 cardiovascular system & hematology ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Brain mapping ,Multimodal Imaging ,03 medical and health sciences ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,Executive Function ,0302 clinical medicine ,Physical medicine and rehabilitation ,Neural Pathways ,medicine ,Humans ,Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and imaging ,Acute Coronary Syndrome ,Gray Matter ,Psychiatry ,Neuroradiology ,Cerebral Cortex ,Brain Mapping ,Resting state fMRI ,Neuropsychology ,Cognition ,Middle Aged ,Executive functions ,medicine.disease ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Diffusion Tensor Imaging ,Neurology ,Female ,Neurology (clinical) ,Psychology ,Cognition Disorders ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Executive dysfunction ,Follow-Up Studies - Abstract
Three to 6 months after an acute coronary syndrome (ACS), cognitive impairment is observed in more than 30 % of the patients, mainly in executive functioning. The aim of this study was to investigate, using multimodal MRI, cerebral anatomo-functional substratum of executive dysfunction. Thirty-three patients were recruited 4 ± 1 months after a first ACS. Executive functions were evaluated with the Trail-Making-Test-B (TMTB) at baseline (ie 4 ± 1 months after ACS) and 6 months later (ie 10 ± 1 months after ACS). Using both time-points, we identified 3 groups of patients according to normative data based on age, gender and education level: 15 'cognitively normal' patients without impairment at each follow-up, 10 'transient impaired' patients with an impairment only at baseline and 8 'impairing' patients with an impairment only at follow-up. We explored, in the whole-brain, the structural integrity using Voxel-Based Morphometry and Tract-Based Spatial Statistics and the resting-state functional connectivity using Network-Based Statistics. No structural difference was observed between impaired and cognitively normal patients. At the functional level, compared to the 'cognitively normal' group, the 'transient impaired' patients presented an increased functional connectivity in a network centered on middle-orbito-frontal regions, whereas the 'impairing' patients presented only a non-significant decrease of functional connectivity. Executive dysfunction in ACS patients is associated to functional but no structural characteristics, particularly to an increased functional connectivity in cognitive networks in transient impaired patients. Further studies with larger sample size are needed to confirm these results and to determine if these patients could be at higher risk for developing permanent cognitive disorders.
- Published
- 2015