Spatial and Temporal Heterogeneity of Cerebral Blood Flow

大脑皮层的结构显示了神经细胞层之间和神经细胞层之间的复杂连接，以及称为柱的功能单元内部和之间的连接。神经细胞的代谢率非常高，流向大脑不同区域的血液取决于哪些部分在特定时间最活跃。血液流动会受到局部氧气和二氧化碳含量变化以及血压的影响。众所周知，血管毛细血管网络表现为流量随局部、周期性的开合活动而变化。毛细血管网络对局部区域的开放称为募集，它为活跃的生物组织提供营养物质(如氧气)和废物代谢物的局部循环。这项工作使用了一种独特的方法来结合时间周期、毛细血管招募、皮质的柱状组织和皮质的血管结构的概念。有人建议，这里的招聘周期相对较快。使用新技术的测量将允许在非常精细的时间和空间水平上获得新的结果，以确定由毛细血管组组成的血管单位如何调节流量以响应需求。这项新颖的工作不仅将对显而易见的临床问题产生重大影响，而且将对神经科学的许多领域产生重大影响，这些领域涉及大脑中的功能结构和活动模式。

The architecture of the cerebral cortex of the brain shows sophisticated connections among and between the layers of nerve cells, and within and between functional units called columns. Nerve cells have very high metabolic rates, and blood flow to different areas of the brain depends on which parts are most active at particular times. Blood flow is altered by regional changes in oxygen and carbon dioxide content, as well as by blood pressure. It is known that vascular capillary networks show flow changes with regional, cyclic activity of opening and closing. The opening of a capillary network to a local region is called recruitment, and provides local cycling of nutrients (such as oxygen) and waste metabolites to active biological tissues. This work uses a unique approach to combine the concepts of temporal cycling, capillary recruitment, columnar organization of the cortex, and vascular architecture of the cortex. There are suggestions that the recruitment cycles here are relatively quite rapid. Measurements with novel technology will allow new results at a very fine level in time and space, to determine how vascular units composed of groups of capillaries regulate flow in response to demand. The impact of this novel work will be high not only on the obvious clinical issues, but on the many areas of neuroscience that deal with functional architecture and activity patterns in the brain.