Abstract #0335

Arterial stiffness and white matter integrity in the elderly: a diffusion tensor and magnetization transfer imaging study

Atef Badji^1,2,3, Adrián Noriega de la Colina^3,4, Agah Karakuzu^2,5, Tanguy Duval², Laurence Desjardins-Crépeau³, Sven Joubert^3,6, Louis Bherer^5,7, Maxime Lamarre-cliche⁸, Nikola Stikov^2,5, Hélène Girouard^3,9, and Julien Cohen-Adad^2,3

¹Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada, ²NeuroPoly Lab, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada, ³Unité de Neuroimagerie Fonctionnelle (UNF), Centre de recherche de l’Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montréal, QC, Canada, ⁴Department of biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada, ⁵Montreal Heart Institute, Montréal, QC, Canada, ⁶Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada, ⁷Department of biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada, ⁸Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada, ⁹Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

Arterial stiffness is a common condition arising with aging and is associated with an elevated risk for white matter structural abnormalities in the brain. The goal of this study is to combine white matter sensitive techniques (DTI, MTsat) to better understand the impact of arterial stiffness on the white matter microstructure and cognitive health in healthy elderly. Results suggest that arterial stiffness is associated with axon degeneration rather than demyelination. Findings from this study also show that improved executive function performance correlates with white matter metrics. Controlling arterial stiffness might play a role in maintaining the health of white matter axons in the aging brain and thus prevent or slow cognitive decline.

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