Abstract
We report a 13-year-old boy with cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) at an early stage. He showed migraine, cognitive deficits, depressive episodes and areas of white matter hyperintensity on MRI. There were no first-degree relatives accompanied with similar symptoms. T2-and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR)-weighted brain MRI revealed areas of apparently symmetric high intensity in the deep white matter and periventicular caps. On ultrastructural studies of the biopsied skin, there were free granular osmiophilic materials (GOM) between vascular smooth muscle cells in the cutaneous vessels. But there were no excavations in the cell membranes that contained GOM. On immunostaining with Notch3 monoclonal antibodies, granular staining was not observed in vessels of the skin. No mutation was detected on DNA analysis of the Notch3 gene (exon 4 and part of exon 5) in peripheral leukocytes. Although the frequencies of migraine episodes and depressive episodes decreased with amitriptyline and ibuprofen, the cognitive deficits (delayed-recall impairment) and areas of white matter hyperintensity on MRI have been unchanged for the past four years.
