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Are These Lesions Causal or Casual?

Arch Neurol. 2004;61:1503-1504.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In 1854, Max Durand-Fardel (1816-1899), a keen observer of the peculiar lesions affecting the brains of the elderly, described interstitial brain atrophy, a condition characterized by loss of tissue density in the white matter.^1-2 However, Durand-Fardel found "no symptom characteristic of this change." ² Forty years later, Otto Binswanger (1852-1929), separated from neurosyphilis a vascular form of dementia characterized pathologically by extensive periventricular white matter lesions (WML) with typical preservation of subcortical arcuate fibers.^3-4 Since then, the role played by WML in the elderly has evolved from a purely casual marker of aging to an important cause of disability, depression, and vascular dementia.⁴ In this issue of the ARCHIVES, Prins et al⁵ analyze the impact of WML on incident dementia in the prospective population-based Rotterdam Scan Study. For the purpose of their analyses, the authors divided WML topographically into periventricular and subcortical. After a mean follow-up of 5.2 years, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Gustavo C. Román, MD

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Cerebral White Matter Lesions and the Risk of Dementia
Niels D. Prins, Ewoud J. van Dijk, Tom den Heijer, Sarah E. Vermeer, Peter J. Koudstaal, Matthijs Oudkerk, Albert Hofman, and Monique M. B. Breteler
Arch Neurol. 2004;61(10):1531-1534.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT