"Capillary dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease"

22th of June at 10:00, LaBRI Laboratory, room 178

A conference by Simon Eskildsen, Associate Professor, University of Aarhus.

Contact : Pierrick Coupé, CNRS Researcher, PICTURA  Research Group, LaBRI, UMR5800, pierrick.coupe@labri.fr

Hypoxia caused by microvascular changes and disturbed capillary flows could stimulate the build-up of AD-specific proteins in brain parenchyma. We compared cerebral microcirculation in a cohort of suspected possible or probable AD with that of healthy, age-matched controls using dynamic susceptibility contrast magnetic resonance imaging (DSC-MRI). Vascular flow disturbances were the quantified using a parametric model and mapped to the mid-cortical surface for group wise statistical analysis. Atrophy and white matter hyperintensities were identified with conventional MRI. We found widespread hypoperfusion in patients compared to controls and identified areas of increased capillary transit time heterogeneity (CTH), consistent with low tissue oxygen tension. Notably, CTH was negatively correlated with mini-mental state examination scores in the patient cohort. This correlation extended over large parts of the temporal, parietal and frontal cortices. These results support the hypothesis of disturbed capillary flow in AD and suggest that DSC-MRI may provide imaging biomarkers of disturbed cerebral microcirculation in AD.