Arterial pulsatility increases with age and is linked to small vessel damage and neurodegeneration. Our group has developed a method that fits a pulsatility model to BOLD temporal volumes based on their cardiac cycle position. We test this method in a healthy adolescent group before and after a physiological stressor, i.e. 20 minutes of moderate intensity exercise. Brain pulsatility was significantly lower in BOLD scans taken 20 minutes after exercise cessation, supporting the viability of this method to track brain arterial stiffness non-invasively.
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