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. 2009 Aug;30(8):1276-87.
doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2007.11.012. Epub 2007 Dec 21.

Differential age effects on cerebral blood flow and BOLD response to encoding: associations with cognition and stroke risk

Katherine J Bangen  1 , Khaled Restom, Thomas T Liu, Amy J Jak, Christina E Wierenga, David P Salmon, Mark W Bondi
Affiliations

Differential age effects on cerebral blood flow and BOLD response to encoding: associations with cognition and stroke risk

Katherine J Bangen et al. Neurobiol Aging. 2009 Aug.

Abstract

Changes in the cerebrovascular system due to age or disease can significantly alter the blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) signal and complicate its interpretation. The simultaneous acquisition of arterial spin labeling (ASL) and BOLD data represents a useful technique to more fully characterize the neurovascular underpinnings of functional brain response to cognition. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) study of episodic memory encoding to investigate whether age is related to cerebral blood flow (CBF) and BOLD response in the medial temporal lobe (MTL). Results demonstrated a significant reduction in resting-state CBF in older compared to young adults. Conversely, older adults showed significantly increased CBF but not BOLD response in the MTL during picture encoding relative to young adults. Correlations between CBF response and cognition were demonstrated whereas associations with BOLD were not observed. Stroke risk was associated with both CBF and BOLD response. Results suggest that aging effects on CBF and BOLD responses to encoding are dissociable and that cerebrovascular alterations contribute to findings of age-related differences.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure Statement

There were no actual or potential conflicts of interest for the authors that could have inappropriately influenced the present work. Participants were recruited in accordance with Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved policies and procedures. Standard professional and ethical guidelines were upheld during the research study and manuscript preparation.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Boxplot of medial temporal lobe (MTL) resting state cerebral blood flow (CBF) by age group.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Sample of the manually drawn hippocampal and parahippocampal gyrus regions of interest (displayed in radiological orientation) and the young and older adult group mean percent change CBF and BOLD response in these regions during picture encoding by hemisphere. Please note that the BOLD signal data in the bar graphs have been multiplied by 100. Also displayed is the average hemodynamic curve of the CBF and BOLD response for young and older adults (shown in blue and red, respectively) during picture encoding.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Scatterplot of the correlation between stroke risk and bilateral medical temporal lobe (MTL) percent change cerebral blood flow (CBF) during picture encoding for the older adult participants.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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