Leukoaraiosis scale of Junque and neuropsychological measures

The purpose of the present research was to assess if the Junque Leukoaraios is scale (LA; Junque et al., 1990) can be associated with a unique pattern of neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses. The LA is an interval scale which measures subcortical white matter alterations (WMA). Using a series of bivariate correlations, we found that as patients accumulated greater su bcortical WMA, there was a disassociation with respect to performance on te sts of memory and executive Functioning. High LA scores were associated wit h better delayed recognition test performance, but poor performance on exec utive control tasks. Similarly, as patients accumulated greater WMA, perfor mance on semantic knowledge measures increased, where;ls performance on vis uoconstruction and graphomotor function declined. In sum, this quantitative measure of subcortical WMA is associated with a specific pattern of cognit ive strengths and weaknesses independent of clinical diagnosis.