Association of the Prefrailty with Global Brain Atrophy and White Matter Lesions Among Cognitively Unimpaired Older Adults: the Nakajima Study

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2022 Aug 1

PMID 35915130

Authors

Moeko Noguchi-Shinohara

Kenjiro Ono

Sohshi Yuki-Nozaki

Kazuo Iwasa

Masami Yokogawa

Kiyonobu Komai

Benjamin Thyreau

Yasuko Tatewaki

Yasuyuki Taki

Mao Shibata

Tomoyuki Ohara

Jun Hata

Toshiharu Ninomiya

Masahito Yamada

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Physical frailty has been associated with adverse outcomes such as dementia. However, the underlying structural brain abnormalities of physical frailty are unclear. We investigated the relationship between physical frailty and structural brain abnormalities in 670 cognitively unimpaired individuals (mean age 70.1 years). Total brain volume (TBV), hippocampal volume (HV), total white matter hypointensities volume (WMHV), and estimated total intracranial volume (eTIV) on the 3D T1-weighted images were automatically computed using FreeSurfer software. Participants were divided into two states of physical frailty (robust vs. prefrail) based on the revised Japanese version of the Cardiovascular Health Study criteria. The multivariable-adjusted mean values of the TBV-to-eTIV ratio was significantly decreased, whereas that of the WMHV-to-eTIV ratio was significantly increased in the prefrail group compared with the robust group. Slowness, one of the components of physical frailty, was significantly associated with reduced TBV-to-eTIV and HV-to-eTIV ratios, and slowness and weakness were significantly associated with an increased WMHV-to-eTIV ratio. Our results suggest that the prefrail state is significantly associated with global brain atrophy and white matter hypointensities. Furthermore, slowness was significantly associated with hippocampal atrophy.

Citing Articles

Cerebral Cortex Activation and Gait Performance between Healthy and Prefrail Older Adults during Cognitive and Walking Tasks.

Fan W, Xiao C, He L, Chen L, Qu H, Yao Q Brain Sci. 2023; 13(7).

PMID: 37508950 PMC: 10377719. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13071018.

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