White Matter Integrity Disruptions Correlate With Cognitive Impairments in Asthma.

BACKGROUND: Cognitive impairments are common in asthma, which is a serious global health problem characterized by chronic airway inflammation. However, the underlying neuromechanism is still unclear.

PURPOSE/HYPOTHESIS: To investigate the neuromechanism underlying cognitive impairments of asthma. We hypothesized that asthma patients exhibit altered white matter (WM) microstructures, which may contribute to their cognitive impairments.

STUDY TYPE: Case-control study.

SUBJECTS: 37 patients with asthma (14 male) and 31 healthy controls (10 male).

FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) covering the whole brain was acquired on a 3.0T scanner using a single-shot echo planar imaging sequence.

ASSESSMENT: A DTI with tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) approach was used to investigate the whole-brain differences in the WM fractional anisotropy (FA) values.

STATISTICAL TESTS: Demographic and neuropsychological data were performed using two independent sample t-test or chi-square test or Mann-Whitney rank test. The relationship between cognitive impairments and WM abnormalities was studied using correlation analyses.

RESULTS: Impairments of language ability, executive function, and visual-spatial processing and widespread WM disruptions reflected by FA reduction were found in asthma patients. The executive function was related to left forceps major, cingulum, and right uncinate fasciculus, ILF (inferior longitudinal fasciculus) positively (P < 0.05). FA abnormalities were positively correlated with duration of asthma and asthma control test (ACT) scores.

DATA CONCLUSION: Asthma patients display multiple cognitive impairments and universally WM integrity disruptions, among which executive dysfunction closely correlates with WM abnormalities.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 1 Technical Efficacy: Stage 5 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2018.