Tao Wendan, Kwapong William Robert, Xie Jianyang, Wang Zetao, Guo Xiaonan, Liu Junfeng, Ye Chen, Wu Bo, Zhao Yitian, Liu Ming
Department of Neurology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Cixi Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, China.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 Aug 22;14:945964. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.945964. eCollection 2022.
The retina and brain share a similar embryologic origin, blood barriers, and microvasculature features. Thus, retinal imaging has been of interest in the aging population to help in the early detection of brain disorders. Imaging evaluation of brain frailty, including brain atrophy and markers of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD), could reflect brain health in normal aging, but is costly and time-consuming. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the retinal microvasculature and its association with radiological indicators of brain frailty in normal aging adults.
Swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (SS-OCTA) and 3T-MRI brain scanning were performed on normal aging adults (aged ≥ 50 years). Using a deep learning algorithm, microvascular tortuosity (VT) and fractal dimension parameter (D) were used to evaluate the superficial vascular complex (SVC) and deep vascular complex (DVC) of the retina. MRI markers of brain frailty include brain volumetric measures and CSVD markers that were assessed.
Of the 139 normal aging individuals included, the mean age was 59.43 ± 7.31 years, and 64.0% ( = 89) of the participants were females. After adjustment of age, sex, and vascular risk factors, D in the DVC showed a significant association with the presence of lacunes (β = 0.58, = 0.007), while VT in the SVC significantly correlated with the score of cerebral deep white matter hyperintensity (β = 0.31, = 0.027). No correlations were found between brain volumes and retinal microvasculature changes ( > 0.05).
Our report suggests that imaging of the retinal microvasculature may give clues to brain frailty in the aging population.
视网膜和大脑具有相似的胚胎起源、血脑屏障和微血管特征。因此，视网膜成像在老年人群中受到关注，有助于早期发现脑部疾病。对脑衰弱的成像评估，包括脑萎缩和脑小血管疾病（CSVD）的标志物，可反映正常衰老过程中的脑健康状况，但成本高且耗时。在本研究中，我们旨在评估正常衰老成年人的视网膜微血管及其与脑衰弱放射学指标的关联。
对正常衰老成年人（年龄≥50岁）进行扫频光学相干断层扫描血管造影（SS-OCTA）和3T磁共振成像（MRI）脑部扫描。使用深度学习算法，微血管迂曲度（VT）和分形维数参数（D）用于评估视网膜的浅表血管复合体（SVC）和深部血管复合体（DVC）。评估脑衰弱的MRI标志物包括脑容量测量和CSVD标志物。
纳入的139名正常衰老个体中，平均年龄为59.43±7.31岁，64.0%（n = 89）的参与者为女性。在调整年龄、性别和血管危险因素后，DVC中的D与腔隙的存在显著相关（β = 0.58，P = 0.007），而SVC中的VT与脑深部白质高信号评分显著相关（β = 0.31，P = 0.027）。未发现脑容量与视网膜微血管变化之间存在相关性（P>0.05）。
我们的报告表明视网膜微血管成像可能为老年人群的脑衰弱提供线索。
