Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 May 27:14:762745.
doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.762745. eCollection 2022.

Decreased Cerebral Blood Flow and Delayed Arterial Transit Are Independently Associated With White Matter Hyperintensity

Ruiting Zhang  1 , Peiyu Huang  1 , Shuyue Wang  1 , Yeerfan Jiaerken  1 , Hui Hong  1 , Yao Zhang  1 , Xinfeng Yu  1 , Min Lou  2 , Minming Zhang  1
Affiliations

Decreased Cerebral Blood Flow and Delayed Arterial Transit Are Independently Associated With White Matter Hyperintensity

Ruiting Zhang et al. Front Aging Neurosci. .

Abstract

Aim: White matter hyperintensities (WMH) and lacunes were important features of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD), which contributes to 25% of ischemic strokes and 45% of dementias. Currently, the underlying mechanisms of WMH and lacunes are not clear, and the role of hemodynamic changes is not fully investigated. In this study, we aimed to measure the cerebral blood flow (CBF) and arterial transit in CSVD patients and to investigate their association with WMH and lacunes.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the prospectively collected database of CSVD patients. Ninety-two CSVD patients with complete imaging data were included. We used arterial spin labeling (ASL) with post-labeling delay time (PLD) of 1,525 ms and 2,025 ms to measure CBF respectively, and the difference between CBFPLD1.5 and CBFPLD2.0 was recorded as δCBF. We performed regression analysis to understand the contribution of CBF, δCBF to CSVD imaging markers.

Results: We found that CBF derived from both PLDs was associated with WMH volume and the presence of lacune. CBFPLD1.5 was significantly lower than CBFPLD2.0 in CSVD patients, and δCBF was correlated with WMH volume but not the presence of lacune. Furthermore, CBFPLD2.0 and δCBF were both associated with WMH in multiple regression analyses, suggesting an independent effect of delayed arterial transit. On an exploratory basis, we also investigated the relationship between venous disruption on δCBF, and we found that δCBF correlated with deep medullary veins score.

Conclusion: Both CBF and arterial transit were associated with WMH. ASL with multiple PLDs could provide additional hemodynamic information to CSVD-related studies.

Keywords: arterial transit; cerebral blood flow; cerebral small vessel disease; lacunes; white matter hyperintensities.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The relationship between CBFs and normalized WMH volume. (A–C) CBFs correlated with normalized WMH volume. The difference between the two CBF values became larger when WMH volumes increased. (D–F) δCBF in all three brain regions was associated with normalized WMH volume.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Two representative patients with different WMH burdens. Upper row: Patient A had a low WMH burden and presented with higher global CBFPLD1.5 than CBFPLD2.0. Lower row: Patient B had a high WMH burden and presented with lower global CBFPLD1.5 than CBFPLD2.0.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Alsop D. C., Detre J. A., Golay X., Gunther M., Hendrikse J., Hernandez-Garcia L., et al. . (2015). Recommended implementation of arterial spin-labeled perfusion MRI for clinical applications: a consensus of the ISMRM perfusion study group and the European consortium for ASL in dementia. Magn. Reson. Med. 73, 102–116. 10.1002/mrm.25197 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Blair G. W., Thrippleton M. J., Shi Y., Hamilton I., Stringer M., Chappell F., et al. . (2020). Intracranial hemodynamic relationships in patients with cerebral small vessel disease. Neurology 94, e2258–e2269. 10.1212/WNL.0000000000009483 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Crama N., Gualino V., Restori M., Charteris D. G. (2010). Central retinal vessel blood flow after surgical treatment for central retinal vein occlusion. Retina 30, 1692–1697. 10.1097/IAE.0b013e3181d8e7e8 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Debette S., Schilling S., Duperron M. G., Larsson S. C., Markus H. S. (2019). Clinical significance of magnetic resonance imaging markers of vascular brain injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Neurol. 76, 81–94. 10.1001/jamaneurol.2018.3122 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Diamond S. L. (2016). Systems analysis of thrombus formation. Circ. Res. 118, 1348–1362. 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.115.306824 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources