Characterizing brain iron deposition in subcortical ischemic vascular dementia using susceptibility-weighted imaging: An in vivo MR study

The aim of this study was to investigate the brain iron accumulation in subcortical ischemic vascular dementia (SIVD) and its correlation with the severity of cognitive impairment. Thirty five patients with SIVD and 35 healthy controls underwent high-resolution susceptibility-weighted imaging. The phase shift value of the bilateral hippocampus (HP), caudate nucleus (CN), globus pallidus (GP), putamen (PU), thalamus (TH), red nucleus (RN), substantia nigra (SN), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), posterior cingulate (PCC), parietal cortex (PC) and frontal white matter (FWM) were examined and correlated with neuropsychological scores for SIVD patients. They exhibited significant increased phase shift values in the bilateral HP, CN, PU, right GP and left SN (P<0.05). Close correlations were found between the phase shift value of the left HP, right CN and neuropsychological scores. Our results suggest that brain iron deposition may be a biomarker of SIVD and play an important role in the pathophysiological mechanism.