Yinan Liu1,2,
Xiaoping Zhu1, David Feinberg2,3, Matthias Guenther4,5,
Howard Rosen6, Michael W. Weiner1,2, Norbert Schuff1,2
1Center for
Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical
Center, San Francisco, CA, USA; 2Department of Radiology &
Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA; 3Advanced
MRI Technology LLC, Sebastopol, CA, USA; 4Mediri GmbH, Heidelberg,
Germany; 5Department of Neurology, Klinikum Mannheim, University
Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; 6Department of Neurology,
University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
While CBF reductions with advancing age have been interpreted as a consequence of reduced brain activity, there is also compelling evidence for compromised cerebrovascular integrity contributing to CBF reductions. In this study, we used ASL MRI to determine the brain perfusion as a function of aging and gender. Besides conformational findings of CBF reductions with advancing age and variations by gender, we also found prolonged arterial-arterioles transit time. The findings imply that vascular factors and gender effects cannot be neglected when evaluating age-related perfusion variations.