Age‐related cerebral perfusion changes in the parietal and temporal lobes measured by pulsed arterial spin labeling

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate age-related regional perfusion changes focused on the medial temporal lobes and related parietal areas using a pulsed arterial spin labeling technique. Materials and Methods:Resting cerebral blood flow (CBF) maps were obtained from 44 healthy volunteers (18 male, 26 female; age range, 19 to 79 years) using a pulsed arterial spin labeling (PASL) MRI technique at 3 Tesla focused on the parietal and temporal lobes. Repeated measurements were performed in 20 subjects to assure the reliability and reproducibility of the applied PASL technique.Results: Focal age-related CBF decreases were detected in the parietal cortex, cuneus and caudate, whereas increases were seen in the lateral and medial temporal lobe such as hippocampus, the calcarine gyrus and the thalamus. Moreover, repeated measurements demonstrated a high reliability and reproducibility of the applied PASL technique.Conclusion: Data provide evidence for regionally dissociated patterns of perfusion increases and decreases during ageing in the temporal and parietal lobes.

Cerebral blood flow and vasoreactivity in aging: an arterial spin labeling study

“…Elderly volunteers showed reduced baseline CBF in different brain regions. These results are in agreement with previous studies using ASL methods (4,22,23,25,32,33). Although some studies reported no CBF differences with advanced age (4,24), Liu et al (22) established that CBF is diminished in elderly even when accounting for major confounding effects from vascular alterations.…”

“…These results are in agreement with previous studies using ASL methods (4,22,23,25,32,33). Although some studies reported no CBF differences with advanced age (4,24), Liu et al (22) established that CBF is diminished in elderly even when accounting for major confounding effects from vascular alterations. Moreover, the CBF decrease in the elderly has been associated with degenerative changes in microvasculature (33) and linked with subcortical white matter health (23), which may have implications for the mechanisms of neurodegeneration (34).…”

“…Although studies have reported lower baseline CBF and CVR levels in elderly compared to young adults, recent studies using ASL have reported different results in aging: global gray matter CBF reduction (22,23), no global gray matter CBF reduction (4,24), or region-specific gray matter CBF alterations (2,3,25). In addition, few CVR assessments have been done using ASL and CO 2 inhalation in elderly people (1,26).…”

“…In addition, age-related cerebrovascular alterations have been reported (3,4). Therefore, the study of cerebral perfusion in advanced age is important to understand neurovascular mechanisms that underlie the reported changes and their relationship with age-related pathologies.…”

Modeling magnetization transfer effects of Q2TIPS bolus saturation in multi-TI pulsed arterial spin labeling

“…[10] and [11]) was modified to use a single 90 flip angle readout instead of multiple low-flip angle readouts (i.e., using T 1 instead of T 1e ). Typical PASL sequences use bolus saturation from 700 ms up to between 1200 and 1600 ms (32)(33)(34)(35) and with TI ranging from 1400 to 1800 ms. For our simulations, we have chosen a bolus saturation start at 700 ms, a bolus saturation end at 1200, 1400, and 1600 ms, and an TI of 1700 ms. The measured GM mean T 1 , k A , k B over all patients were used to simulate the perfusion weighted signal DM .…”