RESEARCH ARTICLE
Vitamin D and Brain Imaging in the Elderly: Should we Expect Some Lesions Specifically Related to Hypovitaminosis D?
Cédric Annweiler*, 1, 2, Manuel Montero-Odasso 2, Susan W Muir 2, Olivier Beauchet 1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
First Page: 16
Last Page: 18
Publisher ID: TONIJ-6-16
DOI: 10.2174/1874440001206010016
PMID: 22423308
PMCID: PMC3296113
Article History:
Received Date: 6/7/2011Revision Received Date: 7/11/2011
Acceptance Date: 10/11/2011
Electronic publication date: 28/2/2012
Collection year: 2012

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Hypovitaminosis D is associated with cognitive decline in the elderly, but the issue of causality remains unresolved. Definitive evidence would include the visualization of brain lesions resulting from hypovitaminosis D. The aim of the present article is to determine, through a literature review, the location and nature of possible brain disorders in hypovitaminosis D. We found limited brain-imaging data, which reported ischemic infarcts and white matter hyperintensities in hypovitaminosis D, though did not provide their specific location or report any focal atrophy. Based on the finding of executive dysfunctions (i.e., mental shifting and information updating impairments) in the presence of hypovitaminosis D, we suggest that hypovitaminosis D is associated with a dysfunction of the frontal-subcortical neuronal circuits, particularly the dorsolateral circuit. Further imaging studies are required to corroborate this assumption and to determine whether hypovitaminosis D results in degenerative and / or vascular lesions.