Hypertension With High Homocysteine Is Associated With Default Network Gray Matter Loss

Yanliang Kong; Xin Li; Lina Chang; Yuwei Liu; Lin Jia; Lei Gao; Lijuan Ren

doi:10.3389/fneur.2021.740819

Hypertension With High Homocysteine Is Associated With Default Network Gray Matter Loss

Front Neurol. 2021 Sep 28:12:740819. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2021.740819. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Yanliang Kong¹, Xin Li², Lina Chang¹, Yuwei Liu¹, Lin Jia¹, Lei Gao³, Lijuan Ren^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, People's Hospital of Tongchuan City, Tongchuan, China.
² Department of Ultrasound, People's Hospital of Tongchuan City, Tongchuan, China.
³ Department of Radiology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Hypertension with high homocysteine (Hcy, ≥10 μmol/L) is also known as H-type hypertension (HHT) and proposed as an independent risk factor for stroke and cognitive impairment. Although previous studies have established the relationships among hypertension, Hcy levels, and cognitive impairment, how they affect brain neuroanatomy remains unclear. Thus, we aimed to investigate whether and to what extent hypertension and high Hcy may affect gray matter volume in 52 middle-aged HHT patients and 51 demographically matched normotensive subjects. Voxel-based morphological analysis suggested that HHT patients experienced significant gray matter loss in the default network. The default network atrophy was significantly correlated with Hcy level and global cognitive function. These findings provide, to our knowledge, novel insights into how HHT affects brain gray matter morphology through blood pressure and Hcy.

Keywords: VBM; cognitive impairment; default mode network; homocysteine; hypertension.