Anterior hippocampus volume loss in narcolepsy with cataplexy

Narcolepsy with cataplexy is a lifelong disease resulting from the loss of hypocretin neurons in the hypothalamus; structural changes are not, however, limited only to the hypothalamus. We previously revealed an overall hippocampal volume loss in narcolepsy with cataplexy. The aim of this study is to describe the volume reduction of the anterior and posterior parts of the hippocampus in patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy in comparison with a control group. The anterior hippocampus is more involved in episodic memory and imagination, and the posterior hippocampus in spatial memory. Manual magnetic resonance imaging hippocampal volumetry was performed in 48 patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy and in 37 controls using the manual delineation technique in the ScanView program. All participants were examined on the same 1.5 T MR scanner; measurement was carried out as T1W 3D image with a slice thickness of 1.0/0 mm. There was a significant absolute loss of the total volume of the anterior hippocampus (sum of left and right) in patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy as compared with the controls (10.5%, p = .03 ANCOVA after correcting for total brain volume and multiple testing). We found a negative correlation between the total anterior hippocampus volume and the duration of the disease (R = -0.4036, p = .016-corrected for multiple testing).