Reduced blood oxygenation level dependent connectivity is related to hypoperfusion in Alzheimer's disease

Goettler, Jens; Preibisch, Christine; Riederer, Isabelle; Pasquini, Lorenzo; Alexopoulos, Panagiotis; Bohn, Karl Peter; Yakushev, Igor; Beller, Ebba; Kaczmarz, Stephan; Zimmer, Claus; Grimmer, Timo; Drzezga, Alexander and Sorg, Christian (2019): Reduced blood oxygenation level dependent connectivity is related to hypoperfusion in Alzheimer's disease. In: Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, Vol. 39, No. 7: pp. 1314-1325

Abstract

Functional connectivity of blood oxygenation level dependent signal fluctuations (BOLD-FC) is decreased in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and suggested to reflect reduced coherence in neural population activity;however, as both neuronal and vascular-hemodynamic processes underlie BOLD signals, impaired perfusion might also contribute to reduced BOLD-FC;42 AD patients and 27 controls underwent simultaneous PET/MR imaging. Resting-state functional MRI assessed BOLD co-activity to quantify BOLD-FC, pulsed arterial spin labeling (pASL) assessed cerebral blood flow (CBF) as proxy for vascular hemodynamics, and F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose PET assessed glucose metabolism (GluMet) to index neuronal activity. Patients' BOLD-FC, CBF, and GluMet were reduced within the same precuneal parietal regions. BOLD-FC was positively associated with mean CBF, specifically in patients and controlled for GluMet levels, suggesting that BOLD-FC reductions correlate with pASL-derived hypoperfusion in AD, independently from F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose PET-derived hypometabolism. Data indicate that impaired vascular hemodynamic processes contribute to reduced BOLD connectivity in AD.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Medicine
• Subjects: 600 Technology > 610 Medicine and health
• ISSN: 0271-678X
• Language: English