Abstract #4903

Analyzing CBF Connectivity Differences Affected by Hypertension in Arterial Spin Labelled Data Using Graph Theory

William D Reeves¹, Ishfaque Ahmed¹, Wenwu Sun¹, Michelle Brown², Celestine Williams², Catherine L Davis², Jennifer E McDowell³, Nathan Yanasak⁴, Shaoyong Su², and Qun Zhao¹

¹Department of Physics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States, ²Georgia Prevention Institute, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, United States, ³Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States, ⁴Department of Radiology and Imaging, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, United States

Synopsis

In a cross-sectional study of hypertension and its effects on brain connectivity, graph theory can be used to show cerebral blood flow connectivity differences between normotensive (n=32) and hypertensive (n=37) subjects. We obtain adjacency matrices from processed arterial spin labelling scans which can be used to determine several quantifications based on graph theory analysis. We find that normotensive subjects exhibit higher small-worldness and global efficiency (σ = 3.30 and E_glob = 0.73) compared to hypertensive subjects (σ = 1.82 and E_glob = 0.46). This trend continues for nearly all thresholding values and implies a measurable perfusion difference between the groups.

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