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Research Paper|Volume 16, Issue 18|pp 12473—12497

Determinants of cerebral blood flow and arterial transit time in healthy older adults

Jack Feron1,2, Katrien Segaert2,3, Foyzul Rahman2,3,4, Sindre H. Fosstveit5, Kelsey E. Joyce1, Ahmed Gilani6, Hilde Lohne-Seiler5, Sveinung Berntsen5, Karen J Mullinger2,3,7, Samuel J. E. Lucas1,2
  • 1School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
  • 2Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
  • 3School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
  • 4College of Psychology, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK
  • 5Department of Sport Science and Physical Education, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
  • 6Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
  • 7Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
* Shared senior authors
Received: February 20, 2024Accepted: August 2, 2024Published: September 18, 2024
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206112

Copyright: © 2024 Feron et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Cerebral blood flow (CBF) and arterial transit time (ATT), markers of brain vascular health, worsen with age. The primary aim of this cross-sectional study was to identify modifiable determinants of CBF and ATT in healthy older adults (n = 78, aged 60–81 years). Associations between cardiorespiratory fitness and CBF or ATT were of particular interest because the impact of cardiorespiratory fitness is not clear within existing literature. Secondly, this study assessed whether CBF or ATT relate to cognitive function in older adults. Multiple post-labelling delay pseudo-continuous arterial spin labelling estimated resting CBF and ATT in grey matter. Results from multiple linear regressions found higher BMI was associated with lower global CBF (β = −0.35, P = 0.008) and a longer global ATT (β = 0.30, P = 0.017), global ATT lengthened with increasing age (β = 0.43, P = 0.004), and higher cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with longer ATT in parietal (β = 0.44, P = 0.004) and occipital (β = 0.45, P = 0.003) regions. Global or regional CBF or ATT were not associated with processing speed, working memory, or attention. In conclusion, preventing excessive weight gain may help attenuate age-related declines in brain vascular health. ATT may be more sensitive to age-related decline than CBF, and therefore useful for early detection and management of cerebrovascular impairment. Finally, cardiorespiratory fitness appears to have little effect on CBF but may induce longer ATT in specific regions.