Abstract #0734

Cerebrovascular Reactivity as a Novel Marker in Assessing Vascular Dysfunction in Alzheimers Disease

Uma Yezhuvath¹, Jinsoo Uh¹, Yamei Cheng¹, Kristin Martin-Cook², Myron Weiner², Matthias van Osch³, Hanzhang Lu¹

¹Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA; ²Alzheimers Disease Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA; ³Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands

Hypercapnic BOLD (5% CO2 breathing) and baseline PCASL scans were carried out in AD patients and elderly normal controls to obtain whole brain distributions of cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) and cerebral blood flow (CBF), respectively. AD patients revealed an anterior distribution for CVR deficits along with a posterior distribution of CBF deficits. Regions of CBF deficits did not have any underlying CVR deficits. BOLD functional MRI shows great potential as a marker of dynamic vessel reactivity as compared to CBF measurements that reflect neuronal metabolic changes.