JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

Abstract

One of the risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease is hypertension. Hypertension alters the brain’s blood vessel structure due to increased arterial pressure. Structural changes in the blood vessels are seen in the cardiovascular pulse, which is formed by blood velocity, blood flow rate, blood pressure, and infrequently blood flow. By simultaneously applying magnetic resonance encephalography (MREG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), this study discovered cardiovascular brain pulses from the blood flow within patients with Alzheimer’s disease and healthy controls. This study detects specific parameters within diverse types of cardiovascular brain pulses. The results detected changes in parameters for diverse types of cardiovascular brain pulses in patients with Alzheimer’s disease within MREG and fNIRS. In addition, the results present an alternative method for finding cardiovascular brain pulse from the blood flow, which might reflect the structural changes of a blood vessel in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. In conclusion, diverse types of cardiovascular brain pulses represent an approximation of arterial, venous, and tissue pulses, which is beneficial for distinguishing the effect of venous and arterial hypertension in Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, altered blood flow may potentially be associated with the impaired glymphatic system in Alzheimer’s disease.