Whole-Brain Atrophy Rates, Regional Cerebral Blood Flow, and Cognitive Profiles of Transient Ischemic Attack Patients and Controls

Reid, Meaghan

Whole-Brain Atrophy Rates, Regional Cerebral Blood Flow, and Cognitive Profiles of Transient Ischemic Attack Patients and Controls

dc.contributor.advisor	Barber, Philip A.
dc.contributor.advisor	Sajobi, Tolulope T.
dc.contributor.author	Reid, Meaghan
dc.contributor.committeemember	Coutts, Shelagh B.
dc.contributor.committeemember	Longman, Richard Stewart
dc.date	2019-11
dc.date.accessioned	2019-06-20T15:10:34Z
dc.date.available	2019-06-20T15:10:34Z
dc.date.issued	2019-06-18
dc.description.abstract	Dementia is one of the most common causes of disability amongst the old and the prevalence is expected to double within the next twenty years. Recent prevention trials have failed to find a cure, likely due to inappropriate trial selection and a lack of reliable outcome measurements. Standardized clinical, demographic, imaging and neuropsychological biomarkers will improve selection criteria and therapeutic interventions. Transient ischemic attack (TIA) patients are at an increased risk of late-life cognitive decline due to their common vascular risk factors with dementia and underlying cerebrovascular pathology. We hypothesized that TIA patients would have increased longitudinal rates of cerebral atrophy as measured by T1 magnetic resonance (MR) imaging compared to non-TIA controls over 1 year and that increased cerebral atrophy rates would be associated with poorer cognitive outcomes. Secondly, we hypothesized that at baseline TIA patients would have lower regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) as measured by arterial spin labelled (ASL) MR imaging compared to non-TIA controls, and that CBF would be associated with cognition. Our results suggest that TIA patients show almost double the cerebral atrophy rates of non-TIA controls over 1-year, and in the absence of demonstrated change in cognition, supports that these subjects with TIA are in a preclinical stage of cognitive decline. Our results also show that TIA patients have reduced CBF in the left entorhinal cortex, the posterior cingulate bilaterally and the right precuneus which was associated with poorer memory outcomes. These predictors of early neurodegeneration and vascular changes show that TIA patients are a high-risk population for dementia and could improve inclusion criteria for clinical trials to prevent dementia in the future.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Reid, M. (2019). Whole-Brain Atrophy Rates, Regional Cerebral Blood Flow, and Cognitive Profiles of Transient Ischemic Attack Patients and Controls (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.	en_US
dc.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/36646
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1880/110510
dc.language.iso	eng	en_US
dc.publisher.faculty	Cumming School of Medicine	en_US
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.	en_US
dc.subject	transient ischemic attack	en_US
dc.subject	magnetic resonance imaging	en_US
dc.subject	cognitive decline	en_US
dc.subject	cerebral blood flow	en_US
dc.subject	atrophy rate	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Neuroscience	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Psychology--Cognitive	en_US
dc.title	Whole-Brain Atrophy Rates, Regional Cerebral Blood Flow, and Cognitive Profiles of Transient Ischemic Attack Patients and Controls	en_US
dc.type	master thesis	en_US
thesis.degree.discipline	Medicine – Medical Sciences	en_US
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary	en_US
thesis.degree.name	Master of Science (MSc)	en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true