Investigation of the association between central arterial stiffness and aggregate g-ratio in cognitively unimpaired adults

Frontiers in Neurology

Neurology

Mary E. Faulkner¹  Zhaoyuan Gong¹  John P. Laporte¹  Elango Palchamy¹  Mohammad A.B.S. Akhonda¹  Mustapha Bouhrara² 

[1]Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD, United States

[2]null

关键词: pulse wave velocity;    myelin;    arterial stiffness;    quantitative MRI;    aggregate g-ratio;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fneur.2023.1170457

 received in 2023-02-20, accepted in 2023-04-03,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Stiffness of the large arteries has been shown to impact cerebral white matter (WM) microstructure in both younger and older adults. However, no study has yet demonstrated an association between arterial stiffness and aggregate g-ratio, a specific magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measure of axonal myelination that is highly correlated with neuronal signal conduction speed. In a cohort of 38 well-documented cognitively unimpaired adults spanning a wide age range, we investigated the association between central arterial stiffness, measured using pulse wave velocity (PWV), and aggregate g-ratio, measured using our recent advanced quantitative MRI methodology, in several cerebral WM structures. After adjusting for age, sex, smoking status, and systolic blood pressure, our results indicate that higher PWV values, that is, elevated arterial stiffness, were associated with lower aggregate g-ratio values, that is, lower microstructural integrity of WM. Compared to other brain regions, these associations were stronger and highly significant in the splenium of the corpus callosum and the internal capsules, which have been consistently documented as very sensitive to elevated arterial stiffness. Moreover, our detailed analysis indicates that these associations were mainly driven by differences in myelination, measured using myelin volume fraction, rather than axonal density, measured using axonal volume fraction. Our findings suggest that arterial stiffness is associated with myelin degeneration, and encourages further longitudinal studies in larger study cohorts. Controlling arterial stiffness may represent a therapeutic target in maintaining the health of WM tissue in cerebral normative aging.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Laporte, Faulkner, Gong, Palchamy, Akhonda and Bouhrara.