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. 2017 Aug;222(6):2641-2653.
doi: 10.1007/s00429-016-1362-2. Epub 2017 Jan 24.

Age differences in arterial and venous extra-cerebral blood flow in healthy adults: contributions of vascular risk factors and genetic variants

Naftali Raz  1   2 , Ana M Daugherty  3   4 , Sean K Sethi  5 , Muzamil Arshad  3   6 , E Mark Haacke  5   7
Affiliations

Age differences in arterial and venous extra-cerebral blood flow in healthy adults: contributions of vascular risk factors and genetic variants

Naftali Raz et al. Brain Struct Funct. 2017 Aug.

Erratum in

Abstract

Sufficient cerebral blood flow (CBF) and venous drainage are critical for normal brain function, and their alterations can affect brain aging. However, to date, most studies focused on arterial CBF (inflow) with little attention paid to the age differences in venous outflow. We measured extra-cerebral arterial and venous blood flow rates with phase-contrast MRI and assessed the influence of vascular risk factors and genetic polymorphisms (ACE insertion/deletion, COMT val158met, and APOEε4) in 73 adults (age 18-74 years). Advanced age, elevated vascular risk, ACE Deletion, and COMT met alleles were linked to lower in- and outflow, with no effects of APOE ε4 noted. Lower age-related CBF rate was unrelated to brain volume and was observed only in val homozygotes of COMTval158met. Thus, in a disease-free population, age differences in CBF may be notable only in persons with high vascular risk and carriers of genetic variants associated with vasoconstriction and lower dopamine availability. It remains to be established if treatments targeting alleviation of the mutable factors can improve the course of cerebrovascular aging in spite of the immutable genetic influence.

Keywords: ACE; COMT; Internal carotid artery; Jugular vein; Phase-contrast MRI; Vertebral artery.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Age- and vascular risk-related differences in the rate of cerebral blood flow: arterial (into the brain) and venous (out of the brain).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Differences in blood flow rate between (A) the COMT val158met val homozygotes and met carriers and (B) between ACE D homozygotes and I carriers. The bars represent the least-square means from the general linear model (see text); the error bars are standard errors around the least-square means.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Age-related differences in blood flow rate by COMT val158met genotype. The regression on age shows a significant negative slope only for val homozygotes (solid line) but not for met carriers (dashed line).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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