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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Neuroimaging
Sec. Clinical Neuroimaging
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnimg.2024.1463311
This article is part of the Research Topic Neuroimaging of the Aging Brain View all 4 articles

Associations Between Cerebral Blood Flow and Progression of White Matter Hyperintensities

Provisionally accepted
Siriluk Thammasart Siriluk Thammasart 1Danielle Harvey Danielle Harvey 2Pauline Maillard Pauline Maillard 3Corinne Donnay Corinne Donnay 3Gregory Wheeler Gregory Wheeler 3Audrey Fan Audrey Fan 3*
  • 1 King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand
  • 2 School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California, United States
  • 3 University of California, Davis, Davis, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In an aging population, white matter hyperintensities (WMHs), observed on FLAIR MRI sequences, are indicators of cognitive decline, motor impairment, and increased vascular risk. However, the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying WMHs, including dynamic changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF) within and adjacent to lesions, remain poorly understood. Our study examined a diverse cohort of 300 elderly participants through arterial spin labeling (ASL) on 3 Tesla MRI, analyzing both crosssectional and longitudinal data to characterize the relationship between CBF and WMH development in different lesion locations and brain tissue types. Our findings reveal that WMHs exhibit significantly lower relative CBF (rCBF) compared to penumbra, normal-appearing white matter, and gray matter, with juxtaventricular WMHs (JVWMH) displaying the most substantial reductions. Longitudinally, WMHs that increased in size over a two-year period had lower baseline rCBF than those that remained stagnant, particularly in juxtaventricular and periventricular regions. This study not only highlights the predictive value of rCBF in WMH progression but also provides location-specific hemodynamic information about WMHs that can guide clinical management of WMH-related brain changes and their clinical manifestations.

    Keywords: White matter hyperintensity (WMH), penumbra, cerebral blood flow (CBF), arterial spin labeling (ASL), Magnetic Resonance Imaging

    Received: 11 Jul 2024; Accepted: 16 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Thammasart, Harvey, Maillard, Donnay, Wheeler and Fan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Audrey Fan, University of California, Davis, Davis, 95616, California, United States

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