Osteoporosis may be a predictor af silent cerebral infarct and white matter change in community-dwelling healthy adults: Present project

Some degree of ischemic injury to white matter tracts occurs naturally with age and is visible on magnetic resonance imaging as focal or confluent white matter hyperintensities (WMHs). Its relationship to cognition, however, remains unclear. To explore this, community-dwelling adults between the ages 55-80 years old completed structural imaging, neuropsychological testing, and questionnaires to provide objective measures and subjective experience of executive functioning. Volumetric lesion burden derived from structural MRI identified those with significant WMH burden (~10 cubic cm). Half of those recruited met this criterion and were designated as the cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) group. Subjective complaints but not objective test scores differentiated adults with and without CSVD. Hierarchical clustering revealed two CSVD subgroups that differentiated those with impaired versus preserved executive function relative to controls. Overall these results provide some explanation for behavioural heterogeneity often observed in studies of age-related white matter changes. They also support the use of questionnaires to assess subjective complaints that may be able to detect subtle effects of pathology not evident on standardized cognitive scores.

Download Full-text

Gait Analysis Using Accelerometry Data from a Single Smartphone: Agreement and Consistency between a Smartphone Application and Gold-Standard Gait Analysis System

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21227497 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (22) ◽

pp. 7497

Author(s):

Roy T. Shahar ◽

Maayan Agmon

Keyword(s):

Gait Analysis ◽

Gold Standard ◽

Concurrent Validity ◽

Gait Cycle ◽

Intraclass Correlation ◽

Smartphone Application ◽

Healthy Adults ◽

Community Dwelling ◽

Human Gait ◽

Spatio Temporal

Spatio-temporal parameters of human gait, currently measured using different methods, provide valuable information on health. Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) are one such method of gait analysis, with smartphone IMUs serving as a good substitute for current gold-standard techniques. Here we investigate the concurrent validity of a smartphone placed in a front-facing pocket to perform gait analysis. Sixty community-dwelling healthy adults equipped with a smartphone and an application for gait analysis completed a 2-min walk on a marked path. Concurrent validity was assessed against an APDM mobility lab (APDM Inc.; Portland, OR, USA). Bland–Altman plots and intraclass correlation coefficients (agreement and consistency) for gait speed, cadence, and step length indicate good to excellent agreement (ICC2,1 > 0.8). For right leg stance and swing % of gait cycle and double support % of gait cycle, results were moderate (0.52 < ICC2,1 < 0.62). For left leg stance and swing % of gait cycle left results show poor agreement (ICC2,1 < 0.5). Consistency of results was good to excellent for all tested parameters (ICC3,1 > 0.8). Thus we have a valid and reliable instrument for measuring healthy adults’ spatio-temporal gait parameters in a controlled walking environment.

Download Full-text

Neuroimaging Anomalies in Community-Dwelling Asymptomatic Adults With Very Early-Stage White Matter Hyperintensity

Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnagi.2021.715434 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 ◽

Author(s):

Shuai Guan ◽

Xiangyu Kong ◽

Shifei Duan ◽

Qingguo Ren ◽

Zhaodi Huang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

White Matter ◽

Functional Mri ◽

Resting State ◽

Early Stage ◽

Structural Mri ◽

Resting State Fmri ◽

Community Dwelling ◽

White Matter Hyperintensity ◽

Age Related ◽

Comparative Results

White matter hyperintensity (WMH) is common in healthy adults in their 60s and can be seen as early as in their 30s and 40s. Alterations in the brain structural and functional profiles in adults with WMH have been repeatedly studied but with a focus on late-stage WMH. To date, structural and functional MRI profiles during the very early stage of WMH remain largely unexplored. To address this, we investigated multimodal MRI (structural, diffusion, and resting-state functional MRI) profiles of community-dwelling asymptomatic adults with very early-stage WMH relative to age-, sex-, and education-matched non-WMH controls. The comparative results showed significant age-related and age-independent changes in structural MRI-based morphometric measures and resting-state fMRI-based measures in a set of specific gray matter (GM) regions but no global white matter changes. The observed structural and functional anomalies in specific GM regions in community-dwelling asymptomatic adults with very early-stage WMH provide novel data regarding very early-stage WMH and enhance understanding of the pathogenesis of WMH.

Download Full-text