Vascular Cognitive Impairment and Neurodegeneration Program, Oklahoma Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 975 NE 10th Street, BRC 1311, Oklahoma City, OK, 73104, USA.
Division of Clinical Physiology, Department of Cardiology / Kálmán Laki Doctoral School of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary.
Geroscience. 2019 Oct;41(5):495-509. doi: 10.1007/s11357-019-00122-x. Epub 2019 Nov 2.
Preclinical studies provide strong evidence that age-related impairment of neurovascular coupling (NVC) plays a causal role in the pathogenesis of vascular cognitive impairment (VCI). NVC is a critical homeostatic mechanism in the brain, responsible for adjustment of local cerebral blood flow to the energetic needs of the active neuronal tissue. Recent progress in geroscience has led to the identification of critical cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in neurovascular aging, identifying these pathways as targets for intervention. In order to translate the preclinical findings to humans, there is a need to assess NVC in geriatric patients as an endpoint in clinical studies. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique that enables the investigation of local changes in cerebral blood flow, quantifying task-related changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin concentrations. In the present overview, the basic principles of fNIRS are introduced and the application of this technique to assess NVC in older adults with implications for the design of studies on the mechanistic underpinnings of VCI is discussed.
临床前研究提供了强有力的证据，表明与年龄相关的神经血管耦合（NVC）损伤在血管性认知障碍（VCI）的发病机制中起因果作用。NVC 是大脑中的一种关键的动态平衡机制，负责调节局部脑血流以满足活跃的神经元组织的能量需求。衰老科学的最新进展导致了与神经血管衰老相关的关键细胞和分子机制的确定，将这些途径确定为干预的靶点。为了将临床前发现转化为人类，需要将 NVC 作为临床研究的终点在老年患者中进行评估。功能近红外光谱（fNIRS）是一种非侵入性的神经影像学技术，可用于研究局部脑血流的变化，定量测量氧合和去氧血红蛋白浓度的任务相关变化。在本综述中，介绍了 fNIRS 的基本原理，并讨论了该技术在评估老年患者 NVC 中的应用，这对研究 VCI 的机制基础的研究设计具有重要意义。
