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Excellent cognitive performance despite massive cerebral white matter changes

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Abstract

Marked cerebral white matter changes are a frequent finding in the daily routine of magnetic resonance imaging of elderly patients. These findings are often equated with a decrease of cognitive function. Here we present a case of massive white matter changes but excellent cognitive performance, to avoid the automatism of drawing conclusions on intellectual ability by just interpreting the imaging data of elderly patients.

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Notes

  1. The SIENA software is part of FSL-FMRIB′s Software Library (http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl)

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NRW-Nachwuchsgruppe Kn2000 of the Nordrhein-Westfalen Ministry of Education and Research (Fö.1KS9604/0), the Interdisciplinary Centre of Clinical Research, Münster (IZKF Projects FG2 and Kne3/074/04), the Innovative Medizinische Forschung, Münster (KN520301), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Kn 285/6–1 and 6–3) as well as a Marie Curie Research and Training grant (RTN:LAB 512141), Mednet Atrial Fibrillation BMBF, and the Neuromedical Foundation.

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Correspondence to Thomas Duning.

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Duning, T., Kugel, H. & Knecht, S. Excellent cognitive performance despite massive cerebral white matter changes. Neuroradiology 47, 749–752 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-005-1420-6

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