Abstract: Objective To investigate the relationship between MRI rating of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) within cholinergic pathway and vascular dementia in Binswanger's disease.Methods 41 patients with Binswanger's disease undergone inspection of MRI. On 4 selected axial images, the severity of WMH in the cholinergic pathways was rated on a 3-point scale for ten regions identified with major anatomical landmarks. The cholinergic pathways hyperintensities scale (CHIPS) were developed by Bocti based immunohistochemical tracings of the cholinergic pathways. Subjects underwent neuropsychological testing with the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (DRS) to assess cognitive domains of interest (attention, episodic memory, executive functions). Spearman correlation coefficients were used to compute association between CHIPS score and DRS score.Results The total score of DRS, the scores of DRS attention subscale and memory subscale were 105.6±18.2, 29.5±4.2 and 11.3±3.2 respectively. The score of CHIPS was 35.6±13.7. After accounting for age and education in a multiple linear regression model, the CHIP ratings were associated with impaired performance on the DRS ( r=-0.43, P<0.05).Conclusion The MRI rating of WMH within cholinergic pathway has strong correlations with cognitive performance in patients with Binswanger's disease.

Key words: vascular dementia, cholinergic pathway, white matter, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)