Regional changes in cerebral perfusion with age when accounting for changes in gray-matter volume

Hu, Jian; Craig, Martin S.; Knight, Silvin P.; De Looze, Celine; Meaney, James F.; Kenney, Rose Anne; Chen, Xin; Chappell, Michael A.

Abstract

Purpose
One possible contributing factor for cerebral blood flow (CBF) decline in normal aging is the increase in partial volume effects due to brain atrophy, as cortical thinning can exacerbate the contamination of gray-matter (GM) voxels by other tissue types. This work investigates CBF changes in normal aging of a large elderly cohort aged 54 to 84 and how correction for partial volume effects that would accommodate potential changes in GM might affect this.

Methods
The study cohort consisted of 474 participants aged 54 to 84 years using pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling MRI. A volumetric pipeline and a surface-based pipeline were applied to measure global and regional perfusion. Volumetric regions of interest (ROIs) included GM, cerebral white matter, vascular territories, and the brain atlas from the UK Biobank. The cortical parcellation was using Desikan–Killiany atlas. Non–partial volume effect correction (PVEc) and PVEc GM-CBF changes with aging were modeled using linear regressions.

Results
Global GM CBF decreased by 0.17 mL/100 g/min per year with aging before PVEc (p < 0.05) and was 0.18 mL/100 g/min after PVEc (p < 0.05). All cortical parcels exhibited CBF decreases with age before PVEc. After PVEc, seven parcels retained decreasing trends. However, GM CBF demonstrated increase with age after PVEc in three parcels.

Conclusion
Although decreases in global perfusion are observed with aging before PVEc, perfusion variations appear to be more regionally selective after PVEc. This supports the understanding that variation in cerebral perfusion with age observed with imaging is influenced by regional changes in anatomy that can be accommodated with PVEc, but perfusion variation is still observable even after PVE is accounted for.

Citation

Hu, J., Craig, M. S., Knight, S. P., De Looze, C., Meaney, J. F., Kenney, R. A., Chen, X., & Chappell, M. A. (2024). Regional changes in cerebral perfusion with age when accounting for changes in gray-matter volume. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.30376

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 29, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Nov 20, 2024
• Publication Date: Nov 20, 2024
• Deposit Date: Nov 21, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 22, 2024
• Print ISSN: 0740-3194
• Electronic ISSN: 1522-2594
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.30376
• Keywords: arterial spin labeling, brain atrophy, partial volume effects correction, perfusion,surface-based analysis
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/42213859
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mrm.30376