Impaired Cerebral Vasomotor Reactivity in Alzheimer's Disease

Recent studies have shown that cerebral vascularity may be impaired in Alzheimer's disease. Cerebral vasomotor reactivity could be an important biomarker for this pathology.

The aim of this study was to investigate the alterations in cerebral vascular motor reactivity in Alzheimer's disease subjects and to associate these changes with their cognitive scores.

We recruited subjects with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and healthy controls. Demographic, clinical, imaging, and cognitive test were obtained. Then all participants performed a cerebral vascular motor reactivity test with 7% CO2 and cerebral blood flow velocities (CBFV) were recorded with transcranial doppler ultrasound before and after the test.

We recruited 45 subjects, 26 (21 female) Alzheimer's disease participants and 19 (15 female) healthy controls. There were no differences in baseline cerebral blood flow velocities between the groups. After the cerebral vasomotor reactivity test, absolute mean difference in mean CBFV (ΔCBFV-m) was 8.70±4.14 versus 4.81±6.96 (p<0.01), respectively. Calculated percentage of change (%CVMR) was lower in the AD group 7.45±18.25 versus 23.29±17.48, and there was a positive but weak correlation with mini-mental scores (ρ=0.337, p=0.023).

In this study, Alzheimer's disease subjects showed significant changes in all absolute cerebral blood flow velocities after the cerebral vasomotor reactivity test with CO2, but only diastolic phase responses were statistically significant. There was a positive but weak correlation between cerebral vasomotor reactivity and cognitive scores. Further studies are needed to investigate these effects in larger Latin-American samples.