Cerebral arterial flow dynamics during systole and diastole phases in young and older healthy adults

Background Since arterial flow is the leading actor in neuro-fluids flow dynamics, it might be interesting to assess whether it is meaningful to study the arterial flow waveform in more detail and whether this provides new important information. Few studies have focused on determining the influence of heart rate variation over time on the arterial flow curve. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate cerebral arterial flow waveforms at extracranial and intracranial compartments in young and elderly healthy adults, also considering systole and diastole phases. Methods Cine phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (CINE-PC MRI) was performed on twenty-eight healthy young volunteers (HYV) and twenty healthy elderly volunteers (HEV) to measure arterial blood flows at the extracranial and intracranial planes. A semi-automated protocol using MATLAB scripts was implemented to identify the main representative points in the arterial flow waveforms. Representative arterial profiles were estimated for each group. Moreover, the effects of age and sex on flow times, amplitude-related parameters, and parameters related to systole and diastole phases were evaluated at the extracranial and intracranial compartments. Student's t-test or Wilcoxon's test (depending on the normality of the distribution) was used to detect significant differences. Results In HYVs, significant differences were observed between extracranial and intracranial levels in parameters related to the AP1 amplitude. Besides the detected differences in pulsatility index (extracranial: 0.92 +/- 0.20 vs. 1.28 +/- 0.33; intracranial: 0.79 +/- 0.15 vs. 1.14 +/- 0.18, p < .001) and average flow (715 +/- 136 vs. 607 +/- 125 ml/min, p = .008) between HYV and HEV, differences in the amplitude value of the arterial flow profile feature points were also noted. Contrary to systole duration (HYV: 360 +/- 29 ms; HEV: 364 +/- 47 ms), diastole duration presented higher inter-individual variability in both populations (HYV: 472 +/- 145 ms; HEV: 456 +/- 106 ms). Our results also showed that, with age, it is mainly the diastolic phase that changes. Although no significant differences in duration were observed between the two populations, the mean flow value in the diastolic phase was significantly lower in HEV (extracranial: 628 +/- 128 vs. 457 +/- 111 ml/min; intracranial: 599 +/- 121 vs. 473 +/- 100 ml/min, p < .001). No significant differences were observed in the arterial flow parameters evaluated between females and males in either HYV or HEV. Conclusion Our study provides a novel contribution on the influence of the cardiac cycle phases on cerebral arterial flow. The main contribution in this study concerns the identification of age-related alterations in cerebral blood flow, which occur mainly during the diastolic phase. Specifically, we observed that mean flow significantly decreases with age during diastole, whereas mean flow during systole is consistent.