Ventral Anterior Cingulate Atrophy as a Predisposing Factor for Transient Global Amnesia.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: This study aimed to evaluate the brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of patients with acute transient global amnesia (TGA) using volumetric analysis to verify whether the brains of TGA patients have pre-existing structural abnormalities.

METHODS

We evaluated the brain MRI data from 87 TGA patients and 20 age- and sex-matched control subjects. We included brain MRIs obtained from TGA patients within 72 hours of symptom onset to verify the pre-existence of structural change. For voxel-based morphometric analyses, statistical parametric mapping was employed to analyze the structural differences between patients with TGA and control subjects.

RESULTS

TGA patients exhibited significant volume reductions in the bilateral ventral anterior cingulate cortices (corrected p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

TGA patients might have pre-existing structural changes in bilateral ventral anterior cingulate cortices prior to TGA attacks.