Guang Li1,
Jeffrey W. Kiel2, Damon P. Cardenas3, De La Garza H.
Bryan4, Timothy O. Duong4
1Department
of Radiology, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX,
United States; 2Department of Ophthalmology, UT Health Science
Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States; 3Department
of Biomedical Engineering, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, San
Antonio, TX, United States; 4Research Imaging Institute, UT Health
Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States
Reactive hyperemia has been attributed to metabolic local control in which BF is trying to match local metabolic demands. In the retina, reactive hyperemia and the effect of occlusion duration on reactive hyperemia have not yet been studied. This study used BOLD and laser speckle BF measurements to investigate reactive hyperemia after graded occlusion durations and probe the reactive hyperemia capacity reserve in the retina. We found that the retinal circulation is under metabolic control but it has smaller capacity for reactive hyperemia compared to other organs (i.e., brain, intestine, heart, etc).
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