May A Beydoun, Hind A Beydoun, Yi-Han Hu, Ziad W El-Hajj, Michael F Georgescu, Nicole Noren Hooten, Zhiguang Li, Jordan Weiss, Donald M Lyall, Shari R Waldstein, Dawson W Hedges, Shawn D Gale, Lenore J Launer, Michele K Evans, Alan B Zonderman
Persistent infections, whether viral, bacterial or parasitic, including Helicobacter pylori infection, have been implicated in non-communicable diseases, including dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases. In this cross-sectional study, data on 635 cognitively normal participants from the UK Biobank study (2006-21, age range: 40-70 years) were used to examine whether H. pylori seropositivity (e.g. presence of antibodies), serointensities of five H. pylori antigens and a measure of total persistent infection burden were associated with selected brain volumetric structural MRI (total, white, grey matter, frontal grey matter (left/right), white matter hyperintensity as percent intracranial volume and bi-lateral sub-cortical volumes) and diffusion-weighted MRI measures (global and tract-specific bi-lateral fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity), after an average 9-10 years of lag time...
2024: Brain communications