Cognitive and brain changes associated with ischaemic heart disease and heart failure

Abstract

Aims: It is unclear whether the cognitive dysfunction associated with heart failure (HF) is due to HF or comorbid conditions such as ischaemic heart disease (IHD). This study aimed to determine whether, compared with controls with and without IHD, adults with systolic HF show evidence of cognitive impairment and cerebral grey matter (GM) loss.

Methods and results: Cross-sectional study of 35 participants with HF, 56 with IHD, and 64 controls without either HF or IHD. Subjects were older than 45 years and free of overt cognitive impairment. We acquired magnetic resonance images and used SPM8 to determine regional differences in cerebral GM volume. Participants with HF had lower scores than controls without IHD on immediate memory, long delay recall and digit coding, whereas those with IHD had lower long delay recall scores than controls without IHD. Compared with controls without IHD, participants with HF showed evidence of GM loss in the left cingulate, the right inferior frontal gyrus, the left middle and superior frontal gyri, the right middle temporal lobe, the right and left anterior cingulate, the right middle frontal gyrus, the inferior and pre-central frontal gyri, the right caudate, and occipital-parietal regions involving the left precuneus. The loss of GM followed a similar, less extensive, pattern when we compared participants with HF and IHD.

Conclusion: Adults with HF have worse immediate and long-term memory and psychomotor speed than controls without IHD. Heart failure is associated with changes in brain regions that are important for demanding cognitive and emotional processing.