Cortical Thickness and Episodic Memory Impairment in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Abstract

Background and purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in brain cortical thickness of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients with and without episodic memory impairment and healthy controls.

Methods: We studied 51 patients divided in 2 groups (SLE with episodic memory deficit, n = 17; SLE without episodic memory deficit, n = 34) by the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test and 34 healthy controls. Groups were paired based on sex, age, education, Mini-Mental State Examination score, and accumulation of disease burden. Cortical thickness from magnetic resonance imaging scans was determined using the FreeSurfer software package.

Results: SLE patients with episodic memory deficits presented reduced cortical thickness in the left supramarginal cortex and superior temporal gyrus when compared to the control group and in the right superior frontal, caudal, and rostral middle frontal and precentral gyri when compared to the SLE group without episodic memory impairment considering time since diagnosis of SLE as covaried. There were no significant differences in the cortical thickness between the SLE without episodic memory and control groups.

Conclusions: Different memory-related cortical regions thinning were found in the episodic memory deficit group when individually compared to the groups of patients without memory impairment and healthy controls.

Keywords: FreeSurfer; SLE; cortical thickness; episodic memory; systemic lupus erythematosus.