Brain and behavior
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Subcortical vascular mild cognitive impairment (svMCI) is the predementia stage of subcortical vascular dementia (SVaD). The aim of this research is to explore and compare cerebral gray matter (GM) volume reduction in svMCI patients and SVaD patients, and to investigate the relationship between cerebral GM volume reduction and cognitive deficits. ⋯ Our findings prove that both svMCI patients and SVaD patients exhibit cerebral GM volume reduction and there may exist a hierarchy between svMCI and SVaD, and cerebral GM volume reduction in both svMCI patients and SVaD patients correlates with cognitive deficits, which can help us understand the mechanism of cognitive impairments in svMCI patients and SVaD patients, and diagnose SVaD at its early stage.