Indices of Systemic Arterial Health are Associated With Cerebral Perfusion and Structure in a Population of Young and Old Adults
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Age‐related decrements in systemic arterial health may be indicative of alterations in cerebral perfusion and structure that are implicated in neurocognitive impairment. Purpose To determine if indicators of systemic arterial health are related to hemodynamic and structural changes in the brain in a population of healthy young and old adults. Hypothesis Poorer markers of arterial health will be associated with aging‐related hemodynamic and structural changes in the brain. Methods Young (n=13, f=7, m=6, 24±3 y, 71±18 kg) and old (n=14, f=5, m=9, 71±4 y, 83±15 kg) participants completed two experimental visits. In visit 1, systemic arterial health was assessed using carotid‐to‐femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV; indicator of central arterial stiffness; tonometry), left common carotid artery intima media thickness (IMT; indicator of carotid health; B‐mode Doppler Ultrasound), and brachial artery flow‐mediated dilation (FMD; indicator of peripheral endothelial function; duplex ultrasound). In visit 2, structural and arterial spin‐labelling neuroimaging data were acquired for computation of grey matter volume (GMV; indicator for structural integrity of the cortical tissues) and baseline cerebral blood flow (CBF0; indicator of gray matter vascular tone and perfusion). Between group differences were assessed using a two‐tailed, unpaired t‐test. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to model the relationship between indices of peripheral arterial function (PWV, IMT and FMD) and age with hemodynamic (CBF 0 ) and structural (GMV) indices of brain health. Results PWV and IMT were greater in old vs. young adults (p<0.01). Reductions in FMD in the older adults approached significance (p=0.06). Both CBF 0 and GMV were significantly lower in old vs. young adults (p<0.01). The dependent variable CBF 0 could be predicted from a linear combination (R 2 =0.72) of the independent variables age (p<0.01), PWV (p=0.04), FMD (p=0.04) and the contribution from IMT approached significance (p=0.07). The dependent variable GMV could be predicted by age alone (R 2 =0.74, p<0.01; all other variables p≥0.49). To isolate the relationship between indices of arterial health and brain structure, the regression analysis was repeated with age excluded . The dependent variable GMV could be predicted by IMT alone (R 2 =0.56, p<0.01) with the contribution from PWV approaching significance (p=0.10; FMD, p=0.83). Conclusion These data indicate that in a population of healthy young and old adults, decreased systemic arterial health is associated with hemodynamic and structural deficits in the brain. Support or Funding Information This work was supported by an Alzheimer’s Society of Brant, Haldimand Norfolk, Hamilton Halton award to REK MacPherson. TD Olver is supported by the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation Establishment Grant #4522.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".