Laboratory of Optical and Molecular Imaging, Biomedical Engineering Institute, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Research Center, University Institute of Geriatrics of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Research Center, EPIC Centre of Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Center for Pain and the Brain, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Research Center, University of Montreal Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Neurobiol Aging. 2021 Oct;106:103-118. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2021.05.002. Epub 2021 May 24.
Aging is accompanied by global brain atrophy occurring unequally across the brain. Cortical thinning is seen with aging with a larger loss in the frontal and temporal subregions. We explored the link between regional cortical thickness and regional cerebral pulsatility. Sixty healthy individuals were divided into two age groups, young (aged 19-31) and older (aged 65-75) adults. Each participant underwent a near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) scan to index regional brain pulsatility from cerebral pulse-transit-time-to-the peak-of-the-pulse (PTTp), an anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a phase-contrast MRI (PC-MRI) scan to measure arterial and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pulsatility. In older adults, the greatest association between cerebral pulsatility and cortical thickness was found in superior and middle temporal and superior, middle and inferior frontal areas, which are the regions perfused first by the internal carotid arteries. This association dropped in the postcentral and superior parietal regions. These findings suggest higher brain pulsatility as a potential risk factor contributing to cortical thinning for some brain regions more than others.
衰老是伴随着大脑整体萎缩发生的，且这种萎缩在大脑中分布不均匀。随着年龄的增长，大脑皮层会变薄，其中额区和颞区的萎缩更为明显。我们探究了大脑皮质厚度与大脑局部搏动性之间的联系。我们将 60 名健康成年人分为两个年龄组，即年轻人（19-31 岁）和老年人（65-75 岁）。每位参与者都接受了近红外光谱（NIRS）扫描，以评估脑血流速度（PTTp）的区域脑搏动指数，同时还接受了解剖磁共振成像（MRI）和相位对比磁共振成像（PC-MRI）扫描，以测量动脉和脑脊液（CSF）搏动性。在老年人中，大脑搏动性与皮质厚度之间最大的相关性出现在颞上和中回以及额上、中、下回，这些区域首先由颈内动脉供血。而在后中央和上顶叶区域，这种相关性下降了。这些发现表明，较高的大脑搏动性可能是导致某些脑区皮质变薄的一个潜在风险因素，而其他脑区则不然。
