Age‐ and Sex‐Related Morphological Changes in Cerebral Blood Vessels: a 7T TOF MRA Study

• DOI: 10.1002/alz.081967
• Publication Date: 2023-12-25T07:16:42Z
• Authors: Jiatai Li; George D Stetten; Noah Schweitzer; Zonghua Shi; Tamer Ibrahim; Shaolin Yang; Bistra Iordanova; Howard J Aizenstein; Minjie Wu
• Keywords: Tortuosity; Magnetic resonance angiography; Age groups

Abstract Background In this study we evaluated age‐ and sex‐associated morphological changes of cerebral blood vessels using 7T Time‐of‐flight (TOF) magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). Method Our consisted 25 cognitively normal older adults (20 female, mean age 68.2 years). Whole‐Brain TOF MRA images were collected on a Siemens scanner at the University Pittsburgh (slice number = 354, voxel size 0.38*0.38*0.38 mm, 12 mins). An iterative vessel segmentation algorithm, VesselMapper, was used to segment (Li et al., 2023). For each subject, are further divided into large small by median split based diameters. Mean tortuosity vessels, overall computed. Linear regression analyses performed evaluate main effects sex, age*sex interaction diameter. Result As shown in Figure 1, found age‐related increase (greater is associated with greater tortuosity, p<0.02). This difference driven (p 0.002) rather than 0.7). We also that positively (p<0.001, black line 2). Furthermore, women showed arterial compared men (age*sex p 0.04, Conclusion findings validated markers sensitive aging. Small brain particularly vulnerable. Further, men, higher risk for disease, which may contribute elevated SVD‐related AD women. Limitation: The has an unbalanced sample (more men) relatively modest (N 25). A cross‐sectional instead longitudinal design analysis. Future balanced required confirm our findings. Reference: Li, Jiatai, al. “VesselMapper ‐ Robust Vessel Segmentation Algorithm 3D Images.” Annual Meeting Organization Human Brain Mapping. 2023