The association between resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and aortic pulse-wave velocity in healthy adults
The association between resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and aortic pulse-wave velocity in healthy adults
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DOI：
10.1002/hbm.24934
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发表时间：
2020-02-07
影响因子：
4.8
通讯作者：
Chen, J. Jean
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Hussein, Ahmad;Matthews, Jacob L.;Chen, J. Jean
静息态功能磁共振成像（rs-fMRI）经常用于研究脑功能;但是，目前尚不清楚BOLD信号波动幅度和功能连接是否与血管因素相关，以及健康人群中的rs-fMRI指标如何反映血管健康因素。由于动脉硬化是一个已知的年龄相关的心血管危险因素，我们研究了主动脉硬化（使用脉搏波速度[PWV]测量）和rs-fMRI指标之间的关联。我们使用心脏MRI测量主动脉PWV（全身血管僵硬度的既定指标），以及双回波伪连续动脉自旋标记同时测量一组健康成人的BOLD和CBF动力学。我们发现：（1）较高的主动脉PWV与较低的静息状态BOLD信号方差相关;（2）较高的PWV也与较低的基于BOLD的静息状态功能连接相关;（3）显示较低连接的区域与显示较低BOLD方差和较高PWV的区域不完全重叠;（4）CBF信号方差是上述发现的重要中介，仅当在感兴趣区域之间取平均值时。此外，我们发现BOLD信号方差与收缩压之间没有显著相关性，收缩压也是血管僵硬度的已知预测因子。PWV测量的血管僵硬度提供了一个独特的场景来证明rs-fMRI信号波动和功能连接中血管偏倚的程度。这些发现表明，与年龄相关的rs-fMRI差异的很大一部分可能是由血管效应而不是直接由大脑功能驱动的。
Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) is frequently used to study brain function; but, it is unclear whether BOLD-signal fluctuation amplitude and functional connectivity are associated with vascular factors, and how vascular-health factors are reflected in rs-fMRI metrics in the healthy population. As arterial stiffening is a known age-related cardiovascular risk factor, we investigated the associations between aortic stiffening (as measured using pulse-wave velocity [PWV]) and rs-fMRI metrics. We used cardiac MRI to measure aortic PWV (an established indicator of whole-body vascular stiffness), as well as dual-echo pseudo-continuous arterial-spin labeling to measure BOLD and CBF dynamics simultaneously in a group of generally healthy adults. We found that: (1) higher aortic PWV is associated with lower variance in the resting-state BOLD signal; (2) higher PWV is also associated with lower BOLD-based resting-state functional connectivity; (3) regions showing lower connectivity do not fully overlap with those showing lower BOLD variance with higher PWV; (4) CBF signal variance is a significant mediator of the above findings, only when averaged across regions-of-interest. Furthermore, we found no significant association between BOLD signal variance and systolic blood pressure, which is also a known predictor of vascular stiffness. Age-related vascular stiffness, as measured by PWV, provides a unique scenario to demonstrate the extent of vascular bias in rs-fMRI signal fluctuations and functional connectivity. These findings suggest that a substantial portion of age-related rs-fMRI differences may be driven by vascular effects rather than directly by brain function.