According to analysts at the Mayo Clinic, leukoaraiosis, a common condition wherein miniscule areas of the brain that have been denied oxygen and manifest as white dots in MRI scans, is not a harmless component of ageing but a disease that changes the brain function in the aged. The online version of the journal Radiology has published the study results.
Leukoaraiosis is also known as small vessel ischemia and called unidentified bright objects or ¡§UBOs¡¨ on the brain scan. It occurs when diseased blood vessels result in small regions of damage in the brain¡¦s white matter. The lesions are seen often in persons over 60 years and the magnitude of the disease differs among persons affected.
Dr. Kirk M. Welker, assistant professor of radiology in the College of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minn, feels that earlier leukoaraiosis was only identified as a normal component of ageing similar to wrinkles and gray hair. Now it is identified as a disease which is believed to be precipitated by high blood pressure and whose risk increases with aging. Recognizing the disease is vital for patients being treated as well as for research. He pointed out that brain white matter deterioration affects linkage with the brain¡¦s language network, thus diminishing the network function.
Dr. Welker¡¦s group conducted functional MRI scans on persons with normal cognition selected from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging during 2006ƒ{2010. In 18 persons, the leukoaraiosis was a modest 25 ml and in 18 age-matched controls it was below 5 ml. MRI scans of the patients were taken as they performed a linguistic decision-making assignment of identifying word pairs and an assignment of visual perception entailing distinguishing between straight and diagonal lines. Patients with moderate leukoaraiosis had anomalous brain activation patterns compared to those in the control group.
Source: http://radiology.rsna.org/
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