Abstract

In an ageing population, neurological problems related to control of brain blood flow are increasing, generating an unsustainable socioeconomic burden. Disorders such as stroke, haemorrhage and vascular dementia affect ~272,000 people in the UK annually, costing £3.2bn. Here, I propose a pragmatic fMRI-based tool to assess the health of the brain’s blood vessels. This will improve understanding of normal brain physiology, opening opportunities to track deterioration of cerebrovascular health during ageing, allowing early intervention in neurological disorders.FMRI is an ideal method to achieve this vision. My key goal is to provide researchers and clinicians with fMRI tools to assess brain vascular health. Localised brain blood flow is mainly controlled by smooth muscles around the arterioles. I will quantify the health of vessel function by measuring changes in arteriolar blood volume during cerebrovascular processes (autoregulation/reactivity). I will develop direct and indirect measures of such function. The indirect measure will combine a comprehensive cerebrovascular function model with widely-available, non-specialised BOLD fMRI scans, helping to maximise accessibility of the technique. Age and disease-related changes in this cerebrovascular measure will be investigated. By providing a new window into cerebrovascular health, this tool aims to help researchers mitigate neurological dysfunction in an ageing population.

Aims

I plan to develop a way of assessing the health of the brain’s blood vessels. This will allow researchers to track deterioration of the vessels as people age and will open the possibility of treating associated brain conditions before they become problematic. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an ideal method to do this because the signals it measures are derived from the properties of the brain’s blood vessels. Smooth muscles around small arteries in the brain allow them to open to increase blood flow when more blood is required in a particular area of the brain. If the muscles are not functioning well, too little blood will be supplied, causing problems for the brain.

I will develop a way to measure how well the smooth muscle responds to the brain’s needs and use this tool to demonstrate how this blood vessel function changes with age and disease.