Dietary Factors and Neuroimaging Markers

描述(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。饮食管理引起了人们的极大兴趣，因为来自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疾病的风险有关，包括脑血管疾病和认知能力下降。众所周知，许多与衰老有关的神经疾病都是由于亚临床大脑变化而发展起来的。这些大脑变化现在可以使用MRI可视化和量化；因此，值得考虑大脑变化的MRI标记物，以更好地了解饮食和大脑老化之间的联系。神经成像标记物是对老化大脑中发生的变化的极其敏感的测量，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的关联。目前关于老年人饮食和神经影像标志物之间关系的文献非常稀少。特别是，饮食模式和神经影像标记物的纵向变化很少被研究。我们之前的工作表明，更多地坚持地中海式饮食与较低的亚临床脑梗塞发病率有关，但与脑白质高强度无关，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检查饮食因素与磁共振成像中看到的大脑变化是如何相关的。具体地说，拟议的研究将通过一系列研究来检验饮食因素(包括个别营养素和饮食模式)与大脑的神经成像变化(包括以体积和皮质厚度衡量的全球和区域性脑萎缩、白质高强度、亚临床脑梗塞)之间的关系，包括：(1)使用华盛顿高地Inwood Columbia Aging Project(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；在独立阶段，(2)在反复进行成像评估的WHICAP-II成像研究参与者中，(2)对这些成像标记物的变化与基线饮食之间的关系进行纵向研究，(3)基于正在进行的WHICAP-2010成像研究的数据进行横断面复制研究，以检查研究的重复性(1)结果，以及(4)基于正在进行的WHICAP-2010成像研究的数据进行的横断面探索性研究，以探索饮食与WHICAP-2010中收集的另外两个MRI标记物(脑血流和脑连接)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脑老化成像标记物中的作用。

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.