Haitao Lii PhD, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) has been regarded as a disease with multiple organ involvement, in recent studies; cerebral atrophy has been highlighted as a possible index of cerebral involvement. The current study is designed to i) localization of cerebral areas significantly affected by SLE patients without overt neuropsychological symptoms, and ii) any clinical index well correlated with cerebral atrophy in such cohort of patients.  

45 SLE patients without overt neuropsychological symptoms 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) outside the scanner 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 by using VBM8 software, 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 ratio (compared with the whole brain volume) of these atrophied areas.  

diffuse grey matter atrophy was found in patients with SLE, mainly involved with prefrontal, temporal lobe, and cerebellum. By extracting individual volume ratio 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.  

Diffuse grey matter atrophy was found in patients with SLE. 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 a possible 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.

VBM studies may be used to investigate the diffuse cerebral atrophy in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Lii, H, Working Memory Function Could Be Predicted by Prefrontal Lobe Volume in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.  Radiological Society of North America 2011 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, November 26 - December 2, 2011 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2011/11003188.html