Structural brain morphometry differences and similarities between young patients with Crohn's disease in remission and healthy young and old controls

Benjamin Yeske; Jiancheng Hou; Daniel Y Chu; Nagesh Adluru; Veena A Nair; Poonam Beniwal-Patel; Sumona Saha; Vivek Prabhakaran

doi:10.3389/fnins.2024.1210939

Structural brain morphometry differences and similarities between young patients with Crohn's disease in remission and healthy young and old controls

Front Neurosci. 2024 Jan 31:18:1210939. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1210939. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Benjamin Yeske^#¹, Jiancheng Hou^#^{2

3}, Daniel Y Chu^{1

3

4}, Nagesh Adluru^{3

5}, Veena A Nair³, Poonam Beniwal-Patel⁶, Sumona Saha⁷, Vivek Prabhakaran^{1

3

4

8}

Affiliations

¹ School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States.
² Center for Cross-Straits Cultural Development, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou City, Fujian, China.
³ Department of Radiology, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States.
⁴ Neuroscience Training Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States.
⁵ The Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States.
⁶ Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, United States.
⁷ Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin- Madison, Madison, WI, United States.
⁸ Department of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Introduction: Crohn's disease (CD), one of the main phenotypes of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract. It can impact the function of gastrointestinal secretions, as well as increasing the intestinal permeability leading to an aberrant immunological response and subsequent intestinal inflammation. Studies have reported anatomical and functional brain changes in Crohn's Disease patients (CDs), possibly due to increased inflammatory markers and microglial cells that play key roles in communicating between the brain, gut, and systemic immune system. To date, no studies have demonstrated similarities between morphological brain changes seen in IBD and brain morphometry observed in older healthy controls..

Methods: For the present study, twelve young CDs in remission (M = 26.08 years, SD = 4.9 years, 7 male) were recruited from an IBD Clinic. Data from 12 young age-matched healthy controls (HCs) (24.5 years, SD = 3.6 years, 8 male) and 12 older HCs (59 years, SD = 8 years, 8 male), previously collected for a different study under a similar MR protocol, were analyzed as controls. T1 weighted images and structural image processing techniques were used to extract surface-based brain measures, to test our hypothesis that young CDs have different brain surface morphometry than their age-matched young HCs and furthermore, appear more similar to older HCs. The phonemic verbal fluency (VF) task (the Controlled Oral Word Association Test, COWAT) (Benton, 1976) was administered to test verbal cognitive ability and executive control.

Results/discussion: On the whole, CDs had more brain regions with differences in brain morphometry measures when compared to the young HCs as compared to the old HCs, suggesting that CD has an effect on the brain that makes it appear more similar to old HCs. Additionally, our study demonstrates this atypical brain morphometry is associated with function on a cognitive task. These results suggest that even younger CDs may be showing some evidence of structural brain changes that demonstrate increased resemblance to older HC brains rather than their similarly aged healthy counterparts.

Keywords: Crohn’s disease; IBD; aging; cognitive function; gut-brain axis; structural imaging.

Abstract

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