Cited by 130Cerebrovascular and genetic disordersDementia and Cognitive Impairment ResearchNeurological Disease Mechanisms and Treatments

White matter hyperintensities across the adult lifespan: Relation to age, Aβ load, and cognition

Open access
Garnier-Crussard, Antoine, Bougacha, Salma, Wirth, Miranka, André, Claire, Delarue, Marion, Landeau, Brigitte, Mézenge, Florence, Kuhn, Elizabeth +8 more·2020·Alzheimer's Research & Therapy

Abstract

BACKGROUND: White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are very frequent in older adults and associated with worse cognitive performance. Little is known about the links between WMH and vascular risk factors, cortical β-amyloid (Aβ) load, and cognition in cognitively unimpaired adults across the entire lifespan, especially in young and middle-aged adults. METHODS: One hundred and thirty-seven cognitively unimpaired adults from the community were enrolled (IMAP cohort). Participants underwent (i) a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment of episodic memory, processing speed, working memory, and executive functions; (ii) brain structural T1 and FLAIR MRI scans used for the automatic segmentation of total and regional (frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital, and corpus callosum) WMH; and (iii) a Florbetapir-PET scan to measure cortical Aβ. The relationships of total and regional WMH to age, vascular risk factors, cortical Aβ, and cognition were assessed within the whole sample, but also splitting the sample in two age groups (≤ or > 60 years old). RESULTS: WMH increased with age across the adult lifespan, i.e., even in young and middle-aged adults. Systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and glycated hemoglobin were all associated with higher WMH before, but not after, adjusting for age and the other vascular risk factors. Higher frontal, temporal, and occipital WMH were associated with greater Aβ, but this association was no longer significant when adjusting for age and vascular risk factors. Higher total and frontal WMH were associated with worse performance in executive functions, with no interactive effect of the age group. In contrast, there was a significant interaction of the age group on the link between WMH and working memory, which was significant within the subgroup of young/middle-aged adults only. Adding cortical Aβ load in the models did not alter the results, and there was no interaction between WMH and Aβ on cognition. CONCLUSION: WMH increased with age and were associated with worse executive functions across the adult lifespan and with worse working memory in young/middle-aged adults. Aβ load was weakly associated with WMH and did not change the relationship found between WMH and executive functions. This study argues for the clinical relevance of WMH across the adult lifespan, even in young and middle-aged adults with low WMH.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/s13195-020-00669-4

Cites

54 of 54 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • WMHs in all cortical regions (frontal, occipital, parietal and temporal) are associated with deficits in executive function scores.

    “Previous studies investigating the impact of regional distribution of WMHs on executive function (EF) found that WMHs in all cortical regions (frontal areas, occipital, parietal and temporal) are associated with deficits in EF scores [15,16,17]”

    From Amyloid-PET and White Matter Hyperintensities Have Independent Effects on Baseline Cognitive Function and Synergistic Effects on Longitudinal Executive Function (2023) · cites this paper as [16]

    The Results section (“Associations between WMH and cognition”; page unavailable) links frontal WMH to worse executive-function performance. Parietal and occipital associations did not survive correction for multiple comparisons, and Table 4 shows no significant temporal association. The claim therefore overstates the evidence by saying the association holds in all four regions. (LLM, conf=0.92)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Garnier-Crussard, A., Bougacha, S., Wirth, M., André, C., Delarue, M., Landeau, B., Mézenge, F., Kuhn, E., Gonneaud, J., Chocat, A., Quillard, A., Ferrand-Devouge, E., de La Sayette, V., Vivien, D., Krolak-Salmon, P., & Chételat, G.
Affiliations
  • Inserm (FR)
  • German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Dresden (DE)
Corresponding author
Chételat, Gaël
Venue
Alzheimer's Research & Therapy
Published
2020-10-08
Volume
12
Issue
1
Pages
127-127
ISSN
1758-9193 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3092538613
Cited by
130
References
54
Citations by year
2026: 18 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 12
FWCI
6.17
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Alzheimer s Research & Therapy (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • DZNE Pub (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
  • Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale
  • Programme Hospitalier de Recherche Clinique (PHRCN 2011-A01493-38, 2012 12-006-0347)
  • Agence Nationale de la Recherche
  • Fondation Plan Alzheimer
  • Fondation LECMA-Vaincre Alzheimer (13732)
  • Association France Alzheimer et maladies apparentées, the Région Basse-Normandie
  • Agence régionale de santé Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
  • Horizon 2020 (667696)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Neurology › Cerebrovascular and genetic disorders
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Neurological Disease Mechanisms and Treatments
Keywords
white matter hyperintensities, vascular risk factors, aging, executive function, working memory, episodic memory, processing speed, young and middle-aged adults, systolic blood pressure, HbA1c, cognitive aging
MeSH terms
Aged, Brain, Cognition, Humans, Longevity, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Middle Aged, Neuropsychological Tests, White Matter

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review