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
. 2023 Jan:121:1-14.
doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2022.09.006. Epub 2022 Sep 22.

Cerebral blood flow predicts multiple demand network activity and fluid intelligence across the adult lifespan

Shuyi Wu  1 , Lorraine K Tyler  2 , Richard N A Henson  3 , James B Rowe  4 , Cam-Can  5 , Kamen A Tsvetanov  6
Affiliations

Cerebral blood flow predicts multiple demand network activity and fluid intelligence across the adult lifespan

Shuyi Wu et al. Neurobiol Aging. 2023 Jan.

Abstract

The preservation of cognitive function in old age is a public health priority. Cerebral hypoperfusion is a hallmark of dementia but its impact on maintaining cognitive ability across the lifespan is less clear. We investigated the relationship between baseline cerebral blood flow (CBF) and blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) response during a fluid reasoning task in a population-based adult lifespan cohort. As age differences in CBF could lead to non-neuronal contributions to the BOLD signal, we introduced commonality analysis to neuroimaging to dissociate performance-related CBF effects from the physiological confounding effects of CBF on the BOLD response. Accounting for CBF, we confirmed that performance- and age-related differences in BOLD responses in the multiple-demand network were implicated in fluid reasoning. Age differences in CBF explained not only performance-related BOLD responses but also performance-independent BOLD responses. Our results suggest that CBF is important for maintaining cognitive function, while its non-neuronal contributions to BOLD signals reflect an age-related confound. Maintaining perfusion into old age may serve to support brain function and preserve cognitive performance.

Keywords: Ageing; Cerebral blood flow; Commonality analysis; Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); Multiple demand network.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests statement

J.B.R. serves as an associate editor to Brain and is a non- remunerated trustee of the Guarantors of Brain, Darwin College Cambridge, and the PSP Association (UK). He has provided consultancy to Asceneuron, Biogen, UCB and has research grants from AZ-Medimmune, Janssen, Lilly and WAVE as industry partners in the Dementias Platform UK. The other authors have no disclosures.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic represenation of various modality datasets in the study, their processing pipelines on a within-subject level, and analytical strategy on between-subject level to test for uniuque and common effects of performance, CBF and age on Cattell task activity. P, performance; A, age; V, vascular; CBF – cerebral blood flow; Covs – covariates of no interest; U – union.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Experimental design and performance on the fMRI Cattell task. (a) The task consisted of eight 30-second blocks with two difficulties (Easy and Hard). In each trial (each row in grey and green panels), participants selected the odd-one-out of four patterns by pressing a corresponding button with one of their fingers (green and red button presses for correct and incorrect responses, respectively). (b) scatter plots of the relationship between performance on fMRI Cattell task and age (left panel) and performance on the standard Cattell task, where participants age is colour coded using yellow-purple gradient palette (right panel).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Main and age effects on task-based activity and cerebral blood flow (CBF) maps. (a) Main effects of BOLD activity in response to Hard vs Easy blocks with over- and underactivations shown in warm and cold colours, respectively. (b) Age-related decreases (cold colours) and increases (warm colours) in Cattell task. (c) Main effect of baseline CBF across all participants. Note the use of ‘relative CBF’, i.e. ‘unquantified CBF’ in our study. (d) Age-related decreases (cold colours) and increases (warm colours) in baseline CBF. Slices are numbered by z level in Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Unique effects in commonality analysis. (top panel) Age-related decreases (cold colours) and increases (warm colours) using TFCE-correction. (middle panel) Performance-related decreases (cold colours) and increases (warm colours) using TFCE-correction. (bottom panel) CBF-related decreases (cold colours) and increases (warm colours) in Cattell task are shown at uncorrected p-values of 0.05 for more complete description of the spatial representation. Slices are numbered by z level in Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Common Effects in commonality analysis. Positive and negative common effects between age and performance are shown in cyan and dark blue colours, respectively. Common effects between age and baseline CBF are shown in orange colour. Common effects between age, performance and CBF are shown in black colour. P – performance, A – age, V – vascular, CBF. Slices are numbered by z level in Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abdelkarim D, Zhao Y, Turner MP, Sivakolundu DK, Lu H, Rypma B. A neural-vascular complex of age-related changes in the human brain: Anatomy, physiology, and implications for neurocognitive aging. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 2019;107:927–944. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.09.005. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Acharya D, Ruesch A, Schmitt S, Yang J, Smith MA, Kainerstorfer JM. Changes in neurovascular coupling with cerebral perfusion pressure indicate a link to cerebral autoregulation. 2022 doi: 10.1177/0271678X221076566. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Addicott MA, Yang LL, Peiffer AM, Burnett LR, Burdette JH, Chen MY, Hayasaka S, Kraft RA, Maldjian JA, Laurienti PJ. The effect of daily caffeine use on cerebral blood flow: How much caffeine can we tolerate? Human Brain Mapping. 2009;30:3102–3114. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20732. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alosco ML, Gunstad J, Xu X, Clark US, Labbe DR, Riskin-Jones HH, Terrero G, Schwarz NF, Walsh EG, Poppas A, Cohen RA, et al. The impact of hypertension on cerebral perfusion and cortical thickness in older adults. Journal of the American Society of Hypertension. 2014;8:561–570. doi: 10.1016/J.JASH.2014.04.002. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alsop DC, Detre JA, Golay X, Günther M, Hendrikse J, Hernandez-Garcia L, Lu H, Macintosh BJ, Parkes LM, Smits M, van Osch MJP, et al. 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. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 2015;73:102–116. doi: 10.1002/mrm.25197. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types