Arthritis & Rheumatism, Volume 62,
November 2010 Abstract Supplement
Abstracts of the American College of
Rheumatology/Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals
Annual Scientific Meeting
Atlanta, Georgia November 6-11, 2010.
Prefrontal Lobe Volume Could Reveal Working Memory Function in Patients with System Lupus Erythematosus.
Fang2, Yongfei, Lii1, Haitao, Zou3, Qinghua, Lin1, Yun
Department of Radiology, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
Department of Rheumatology, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
Department of Rheumatology, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
Background:
As a disease found with multiple organ involvement, cerebral atrophy in systemic lupus erythematosus has been reported by recent studies. The aim of the current study is i) to localize cerebral areas affected by SLE, and ii) to find any clinical index significantly correlated with cerebral atrophy.
Methods:
45 patients with SLE and 30 age, gender and education matched healthy controls were included, patients first underwent a working memory test named Paced Visual Serial Adding Test (PVSAT) and then scanned in a 3.0 Tesla MRI scanner for whole brain by 3D MPRAGE sequence. Images were process by Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM8) software using a voxel based morphometry (VBM) through a newly improved Diffeomorphic Anatomical Regstration Through Exponentiated Lie algebra (DARTEL) approach, which mainly included segmenting brain images into grey matter, white matter and cerebral spinal fluid; estimating the deformations that best align the images together by iteratively registering the segmented images with their average, and generating spatially normalised and smoothed Jacobian scaled grey matter images, by using the deformations estimated in the previous step; and finally a two sample t test to depict cerebral areas of SLE patients with significant atrophy compared with controls. Then SLEDAI score, duration of disease, daily corticosteroid dosage and working memory test results were correlated with individual volume of these atrophied areas.
Results:
diffuse grey matter atrophy was found in patients with SLE, mainly involved with prefrontal, temporal lobe, and cerebellum. By extracting individual volume of these cerebral areas, prefrontal lobe volume was positively correlated with test score of working memory test, and whole brain volume was negatively correlated with disease duration. No other clinical indexes were found to be in significant correlation with cerebral atrophy of SLE.
Conclusion:
in consistence with previous researches, diffuse grey matter atrophy was found in patients with SLE. Further more, correlation between cognitive impairment and prefrontal lobe atrophy was discovered, indicating that i) cognitive impairment in SLE could be reflected by individual prefrontal lobe volume; ii) prefrontal lobe volume may be served as an marker of cognitive function in SLE. Nevertheless, negative correlation between disease duration and whole brain volume demonstrated a significant and chronic impact of SLE on human brain. However, as such results were generated based on a limited number of subjects, further research is required to depict the insights of the profile in the future.
To cite this abstract, please use the following information:
Fang, Yongfei, Lii, Haitao, Zou, Qinghua, Lin, Yun; Prefrontal Lobe Volume Could Reveal Working Memory Function in Patients with System Lupus Erythematosus. [abstract]. Arthritis Rheum 2010;62 Suppl 10 :1167
DOI: 10.1002/art.28933
