White matter integrity is vital for the cognitive functions of the brain, new research has now shown how the loss of white matter and cognitive decline happens at a faster rate after stroke.
The study authors compare our brains to computers “made up of processors and connections” and note that it is our grey and white matter in our brains that work as these two parts.
Dr Natalie Egorova-Brumley, says that the “grey matter contains the processors, while white matter as the high speed cables that provide the communication between different parts of the brain.”
White matter is responsible for the fast transfer of information between different regions of our brain, therefore any damage caused to this transfer of information, caused by a stroke for example, is “likely to impact our cognitive abilities”.
White matter typically gradually increases in the first 40 years of life, before peaking at around 50 and then slowly decreasing from 60 onwards.
Researchers on this study state that their results clearly display strokes can lead to ongoing changes to the brain which can continue on for years after the stroke has occurred.
The Cognition and Neocortical Volume After Stroke (CANVAS) study, was conducted by a research team from the University of Melbourne.
The study followed patients for three years after their strokes and compared their brain structure and their cognition to those of a control group of similar age who had not had a stroke.
Researchers first noted a widespread decline in the health of white matter at three months after a stroke compared to the control group.
The team led by Professor Amy Brodtmann also discovered that worse cognition impact was associated with lower grey matter volume, furthermore, this impact on cognition continued as late as three years post stroke.
Dr Egorova-Brumley, refers to the University’s most recent paper, which examined 71 of the participants with ischaemic stroke and 36 members of the matched control group. All participants went under MRI brain scans and a series of cognitive tests to measure their ability to think.
These scans were repeated and 3, 12 and 36 months in order to follow the trajectory of brain health and cognition post-stroke.
The researchers found that after stroke, white matter declined faster than in the regular population, for the full three years, in areas that are important for thinking.
Dr Egorova-Brumley notes that is vital to introduce a healthy lifestyle, diet and sleeping pattern, as well as daily exercise, in order to improve brain health and to also slow the rate of cognitive impairment after a stroke.
