ARTERIAL STIFFNESS AND CEREBRAL BLOOD FLOW AMONG OLDER ADULTS

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) prevalence and cost of care is expected to triple over the next two to three decades. Without a means of prevention these trends will continue unabated. Targeting vascular risk factors is proposed as a critical means to prevent AD and related dementias; however, few targets for intervention remain. A previous unpublished study examining the Piedmont Aging, Cognition, & Exercise Study (PACE) cohort found a relationship for the vascular factors arterial stiffness and cerebral blood flow (CBF) with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This study analyzes arterial stiffness and CBF as potential pre-clinical factors of AD in the Alzheimer’s Disease Prevention Participant Repository (ADPPR) cohort. There was a total of 91 participants from ADPPR with measures of multiphase-pseudocontinuous arterial spin labelling (ASL) to capture CBF and carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) and reflection magnitude (RM) to check each individual’s level of arterial stiffness. The mean (standard deviation) age for ADPPR was 67.2(8.0) with 74.7% being female. ADPPR consisted of 19.8% individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Arterial stiffness and CBF were not associated in ADPPR, and race had no significant impact on the relationship. We observed a significant association with lower CBF among cognitively impaired individuals. This relationship was not significantly different among cognitively normal individuals. Reflection magnitude was significantly associated with poorer cognitive performance on Language and Processing Speed domains even after accounting for CBF. This study demonstrates the need for further research examining pre-clinical factors in a longitudinal study to get a better understanding if PWV and CBF share a relationship and what impact that has on cognition.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Marlin, Chelsea

• Alzheimer's Disease

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/90770

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/90770