For the first time, MRI has detected early signs of neurological damage in patients with high blood pressure before actual symptoms of dementia occur.
Because treatment is often administered to patients after symptoms of dementia are evident, physicians would greatly benefit from tools able to detect damage as early as possible, allowing treatment to combat the neurodegenerative process, according to a new study published June 12 in Cardiovascular Research.
"The problem is that neurological alterations related to hypertension are usually diagnosed only when the cognitive deficit becomes evident, or when traditional magnetic resonance shows clear signs of brain damage. In both cases, it is often too late to stop the pathological process" said corresponding author Giuseppe Lembo, PhD, in a prepared statement.
Lembo and colleagues recruited participants with high blood pressure aged 40 to 65 and admitted at the Regional Excellence Hypertension Center of the Italian Society of Hypertension in the department of angiocardioneurology and translational medicine of the I.R.C.C.S, Neuromed. All participants underwent MRI and entered the study showing no sign structural brain damage and no diagnosis of dementia.
The researchers primarily focused on assessing changes in white matter microstructure and its association with cognitive impairment.
Ultimately, they found alterations in three white matter fiber-tracts in the brain and ultimately showed a decrease in attention, emotions and memory—which otherwise would have been undetected by conventional neuroimaging, the authors wrote.
"An important aspect to consider is that all the patients studied did not show clinical signs of dementia and, in conventional neuroimaging, they showed no signs of cerebral damage," said first author Lorenzo Carnevale, PhD, in a prepared statement "Of course, further studies will be necessary, but we think that the use of tractography will lead to the early identification of people at risk of dementia, allowing timely therapeutic interventions."
A recent graduate from Dominican University (IL) with a bachelor’s in journalism, Melissa joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering all aspects of health imaging. She’s a fan of singing and playing guitar, elephants, a good cup of tea, and her golden retriever Cooper.