TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessment of microvascular rarefaction in human brain disorders using physiological magnetic resonance imaging
AU - van Dinther, M.
AU - Voorter, P.H.M.
AU - Jansen, J.F.A.
AU - Jones, E.A.V.
AU - van Oostenbrugge, R.J.
AU - Staals, J.
AU - Backes, W.H.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project ‘CRUCIAL’ (grant number 848109).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.
PY - 2022/5
Y1 - 2022/5
N2 - Cerebral microvascular rarefaction, the reduction in number of functional or structural small blood vessels in the brain, is thought to play an important role in the early stages of microvascular related brain disorders. A better understanding of its underlying pathophysiological mechanisms, and methods to measure microvascular density in the human brain are needed to develop biomarkers for early diagnosis and to identify targets for disease modifying treatments. Therefore, we provide an overview of the assumed main pathophysiological processes underlying cerebral microvascular rarefaction and the evidence for rarefaction in several microvascular related brain disorders. A number of advanced physiological MRI techniques can be used to measure the pathological alterations associated with microvascular rarefaction. Although more research is needed to explore and validate these MRI techniques in microvascular rarefaction in brain disorders, they provide a set of promising future tools to assess various features relevant for rarefaction, such as cerebral blood flow and volume, vessel density and radius and blood-brain barrier leakage.
AB - Cerebral microvascular rarefaction, the reduction in number of functional or structural small blood vessels in the brain, is thought to play an important role in the early stages of microvascular related brain disorders. A better understanding of its underlying pathophysiological mechanisms, and methods to measure microvascular density in the human brain are needed to develop biomarkers for early diagnosis and to identify targets for disease modifying treatments. Therefore, we provide an overview of the assumed main pathophysiological processes underlying cerebral microvascular rarefaction and the evidence for rarefaction in several microvascular related brain disorders. A number of advanced physiological MRI techniques can be used to measure the pathological alterations associated with microvascular rarefaction. Although more research is needed to explore and validate these MRI techniques in microvascular rarefaction in brain disorders, they provide a set of promising future tools to assess various features relevant for rarefaction, such as cerebral blood flow and volume, vessel density and radius and blood-brain barrier leakage.
KW - Alzheimer's disease
KW - cerebral small vessel disease
KW - magnetic resonance imaging
KW - microvascular density
KW - microvascular rarefaction
KW - CEREBRAL-BLOOD-FLOW
KW - DYNAMIC SUSCEPTIBILITY CONTRAST
KW - SMALL VESSEL DISEASE
KW - TRANSIT-TIME HETEROGENEITY
KW - SPIN-LABELING MRI
KW - GROWTH-FACTOR-I
KW - ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE
KW - WHITE-MATTER
KW - BASEMENT-MEMBRANE
KW - COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT
U2 - 10.1177/0271678X221076557
DO - 10.1177/0271678X221076557
M3 - (Systematic) Review article
C2 - 35078344
SN - 0271-678X
VL - 42
SP - 718
EP - 737
JO - Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism
JF - Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism
IS - 5
M1 - 0271678X221076557
ER -