Cortical microstructural involvement in cerebral small vessel disease.

Background: In cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD), cortical atrophy occurs at a later stage compared to microstructural abnormalities and therefore cannot be used for monitoring short-term disease progression. We aimed to investigate whether cortical diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and quantitative (q) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are able to detect early microstructural involvement of the cerebral cortex in CSVD.

Materials And Methods: 33 CSVD patients without significant cortical or whole-brain atrophy and 16 healthy control subjects were included and underwent structural MRI, DTI and high-resolution qMRI with T, T* and T mapping at 3 T as well as comprehensive cognitive assessment.