PP.34.24: ALTERED BRAIN MECHANISMS OF HIGHER COGNITIVE PROCESSING IN ESSENTIAL HYPERTENSION. (June 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Naumczyk, P.; Graff, B.; Gasecki, D.; Sabisz, A.; Witkowska, M.; Jodzio, K.; Szurowska, E.; Narkiewicz, K.
• Is Part Of: Journal of hypertension. Volume 33(2015)Supplement 1
• Publication Date: 2015-06
• Subjects: Hypertension -- Periodicals; Hypertension -- Periodicals; 616.132005
• DOI: 10.1097/01.hjh.0000468778.52892.8b
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1473-5598

Abstract

Abstract : Objective: Hypertension is known to cause the significant alterations regarding both brain structure and function. Although the evidence exists that in hypertensive patients cognitive deficits are early manifestation of the disease, the mechanism of the underlying changes is not fully understood. Design and method: 20 hypertensive patients (aged 49 ± 8 years; 11 women) and 20 healthy controls matched for sex, age and years of education were included in the study. All subjects underwent structural and functional neuroimaging study using 3T Achieva TX MRI scanner. Anatomical examination comprised of TFE and TSE T1 and T2-weighted three plane imaging as well as FLAIR and DWI (b = 0, 500, 1000 mm2/s). Two independent radiologists evaluated the anatomical data in reference to the Fazekas scale for white matter lesions. The agreement among the raters was assessed with the Kendall's coefficient of concordance. The functional MRI data were collected during the Stroop colour – word task. Whole-brain full-factorial analysis was performed with 4 conditions of various difficulties (control, incongruent, congruent, reading) and 2 groups (patients, controls) as factors. The results were corrected for multiple comparisons (p < 0.05 FWE). Results: 1. No significant difference regarding the amount of white matter lesions was found between the two tested groups (chi square test, p > 0.1). High Kendall's coefficient of concordance was achieved (W = 0.96). 2. In functional MRI analysis hypertensive patients presented with the significantly greater area of cerebral activations compared to the control group. Direct coordinates of the peak significant voxels are reported in Table 1. The observed differences occurred irrespective of the task difficulty. Moreover, the task performance was similar in both groups. Figure. No caption available. Conclusions: Our results suggest that hypertension is linked to altered brain mechanisms of complex cognitive task processing even if structural brain changes are absent. It may support the hypothesis that hypertension might contribute to alterations in central neural plasticity.