Microbleeds colocalize with enlarged juxtacortical perivascular spaces in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer's disease: A 7 Tesla MRI study
Bouvy, Willem H, van Veluw, Susanne J, Kuijf, Hugo J, Zwanenburg, Jaco Jm, Kappelle, Jaap L, Luijten, Peter R, Koek, Huiberdina L, Geerlings, Mirjam I, Biessels, Geert J, Utrecht Vascular Cognitive Impairment (VCI) Study group
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0271678X19838087
Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism 40 (4), p. 739-746
Abstract
MRI-visible perivascular spaces (PVS) in the semioval centre are associated with cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), but it is unknown if PVS co-localize with MRI markers of CAA. To examine this, we assessed the topographical association between cortical cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) - as an indirect marker of CAA - and dilatation of juxtacortical perivascular spaces (jPVS) in 46 patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) or early Alzheimer's disease (eAD). The degree of dilatation of jPVS <1 cm around each cortical CMBs was compared with a similar reference site (no CMB) in the contralateral hemisphere, using a 4-point scale. Also, jPVS dilatation was compared between patients with and without cortical CMBs. Eleven patients (24%) had cortical CMBs [total=35, median=1, range=1-14] of whom five had >1 cortical CMBs. The degree of jPVS dilatation was higher around CMBs than at the reference sites [Wilcoxon signed rank test, Z = 2.2, p = 0.03]. Patients with >1 cortical CMBs had a higher degree of jPVS dilation [median=2.2, IQR = 1.8-2.3] than patients without cortical CMBs [median=1.4, IQR = 1.0-1.8], p = 0.02. We found a topographical association between a high degree of jPVS dilatation and cortical CMBs, supporting a common underlying pathophysiology - most likely CAA.