Dietary Factors and Neuroimaging Markers

描述（由申请人提供）：随着婴儿潮一代接近65岁，促进健康的大脑老化越来越受到老龄化人口的关注。饮食管理受到了极大的关注，因为观察性研究的越来越多的证据表明，饮食因素可能与老年人患神经系统疾病（包括脑血管疾病和认知能力下降）的风险有关。众所周知，许多老年神经系统疾病的发展是亚临床大脑变化的结果。这些大脑变化现在可以使用MRI进行可视化和量化;因此，大脑变化的MRI标记物值得考虑，以更好地了解饮食和大脑衰老之间的关系。神经影像学标记物是对大脑衰老变化的非常敏感的测量，也可以帮助我们更好地了解饮食的不同方面与大脑功能障碍的特定变化之间的关系。目前关于老年人饮食和神经影像学指标之间关系的文献非常稀少。特别是，饮食模式和神经影像学标记物的纵向变化很少被研究。我们以前的研究表明，更高的地中海式饮食依从性与亚临床脑梗死的发病率较低相关，但与白色高信号无关，强调了探索饮食模式和多种成像标记物的价值。这项研究的总体目标是研究饮食因素如何与MRI成像上看到的大脑变化相关。具体来说，这项拟议中的研究将研究饮食因素之间的联系，（包括个人营养素和饮食模式）和大脑的神经影像学变化（包括通过体积和皮质厚度测量的整体和局部脑萎缩、白色高信号、亚临床脑梗死），包括：在指导阶段，（1）使用来自华盛顿高地Inwood哥伦比亚老龄化项目（WHICAP）-II成像研究的数据，对基线饮食因素和上述神经成像标记物之间的关系进行横断面研究;以及在独立阶段，（2）在进行重复成像评价的WHICAP-II成像研究参与者的子集中，基线饮食与这些成像标志物变化之间关联的纵向研究，（3）基于正在进行的WHICAP-2010成像研究的数据进行的横断面重复研究，以检查研究的再现性（1）结果，和（4）基于正在进行的WHICAP-2010成像研究数据的横断面探索性研究，以探索饮食与WHICAP-2010中收集的两个额外MRI标记物（脑血流量和脑连接）之间的关系。这项研究的发现将有助于我们理解饮食因素在大脑衰老的成像标记中的作用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Promoting healthy brain aging is of increasing concern to an aging population as the baby boom generation approaches age 65. Dietary management has received a great deal of interest as mounting evidence from observational studies suggests dietary factors may be associated with the risk of developing neurological diseases, including cerebrovascular diseases and cognitive decline, in the elderly. Many of the neurological diseases of aging are known to develop as a result of subclinical brain changes. These brain changes can now be visualized and quantified using MRI; therefore MRI markers of brain changes are worth being considered to better understand the association between diet and brain aging. Neuroimaging markers are extremely sensitive measurements of changes occurring in the aging brain, and can also help us understand better the associations of different aspects of diet with specific changes of brain dysfunction. Current literature on the associations between diet and neuroimaging markers in the elderly has been extremely sparse. In particular, dietary patterns and longitudinal change of neuroimaging marker have been rarely investigated. Our previous work shows that higher adherence to a Mediterranean-type diet was associated with lower prevalence of subclinical brain infarcts but not white matter hyperintensity, emphasizing the value of exploring dietary patterns and multiple imaging markers. The overall aim of this study is to examine how dietary factors are related with brain changes seen on MRI imaging. Specifically, the proposed study will examine the association between dietary factors (both individual nutrients and dietary patterns) and neuroimaging changes of the brain (including global and regional brain atrophy measured by volume and cortical thickness, white matter hyperintensity, subclinical brain infarcts) through a series of studies including: during the mentored phase, (1) a cross-sectional study of the relationship between baseline dietary factors and above-mentioned neuroimaging markers using data from the Washington Heights Inwood Columbia Aging Project (WHICAP) -II Imaging Study; and during the independent phase, (2) a longitudinal study of the association between baseline diet and change of these imaging markers in a subset of WHICAP-II Imaging Study participants who have repeated imaging evaluations, (3) a cross-sectional replication study based on data from an on-going WHICAP-2010 Imaging Study to examine the reproducibility of the study (1) findings, and (4) a cross-sectional exploratory study based on data from an on-going WHICAP-2010 Imaging Study to explore the relationship between diet and two additional MRI markers collected in WHICAP-2010, cerebral blood flow and brain connectivity. Findings from this study will contribute to our understanding of the role of dietary factors in imaging markers of brain aging.