Dimension‐based quantification of aging‐associated cerebral microvasculature determined by optical coherence tomography and two‐photon microscopy

• DOI: 10.1002/jbio.202300409
• Publication Date: 2024-01-04T23:51:21Z
• Authors: Feng Yan; Zaid A. Alhajeri; Adam Nyul‐Toth; Chen Wang; Qinghao Zhang; Ebenezer Raj Selv...; Jordan Delfavero; Chetan Ahire; Bornface M. Mutembei; Stefano Tarantini; Anna Csiszar; Qinggong Tang
• Keywords: Mice, Inbred C57BL; Mice; Microscopy; Aging; 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Microvessels; Animals; Tomography, Optical Coherence

AbstractCerebral microvascular health is a key biomarker for the study of natural aging and associated neurological diseases. Our aim is to quantify aging‐associated change of microvasculature at diverse dimensions in mice brain. We used optical coherence tomography (OCT) and two‐photon microscopy (TPM) to obtain nonaged and aged C57BL/6J mice cerebral microvascular images in vivo. Our results indicated that artery & vein, arteriole & venule, and capillary from nonaged and aged mice showed significant differences in density, diameter, complexity, perimeter, and tortuosity. OCT angiography and TPM provided the comprehensive quantification for arteriole and venule via compensating the limitation of each modality alone. We further demonstrated that arteriole and venule at specific dimensions exhibited negative correlations in most quantification analyses between nonaged and aged mice, which indicated that TPM and OCT were able to offer complementary vascular information to study the change of cerebral blood vessels in aging.