Lars Eric Forsberg1,2, Sigurdur Sigurdsson3,
Thor Aspelund3,4, Jesper Fredriksson2, Smri
Kristinsson2, lafur Kjartansson3, Brynds skarsdttir3,
Plmi V. Jnsson3,4, Gudn Eirksdttir3, Tamara B.
Harris5, Mark A. van Buchem6, Alex Zijdenbos7,
Lenore J. Launer5, Vilmundur Gudnason3,4
1Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska
Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; 2Rafrninn ehf, Reykjavik, Iceland;
3Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland; 4The
University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland; 5Laboratory of
Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute of Aging,
Bethesda, MD, United States; 6Department of Radiology, Leiden
University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands; 7Biospective Inc.,
Montreal, Canada
Type
2 diabetes (DM2) is a known risk factor for white matter lesions (WML) in
elderly subjects. In this study, we used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to
analyse the common distribution of WML in 215 subjects with DM2 (average age
76.1 years) compared to 1675 non-diabetic controls (average age 75.8 years).
Our main finding is that DM2 subjects have commonly large WML areas in the
brain that extend from the frontal lobe to the parietal lobe.