IMR Press / JIN / Volume 23 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.31083/j.jin2304070
Open Access Review
Microvascular Perfusion Imaging in Alzheimer's Disease
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1 Department of Ultrasound, First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, 450052 Zhengzhou, Henan, China
2 Department of Surgery, Rhode Island Hospital, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI 02903, USA
3 Graduate Medical Education Program, Memorial Healthcare System, Pembroke Pines, FL 33028, USA
*Correspondence: yisong8219@gmail.com (Yi Song)
J. Integr. Neurosci. 2024, 23(4), 70; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.jin2304070
Submitted: 25 July 2023 | Revised: 1 September 2023 | Accepted: 12 September 2023 | Published: 1 April 2024
Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia worldwide and significantly impacts the essential functions of daily life and social activities. Research on AD has found that its pathogenesis is related to the extracellular accumulation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles in the cortical and limbic areas of the human brain, as well as cerebrovascular factors. The detection of Aβ or tau can be performed using various probes and methodologies. However, these modalities are expensive to implement and often require invasive procedures, limiting accessibility on a large scale. While magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) are generally used for morphological and structural brain imaging, they show wide variability in their accuracy for the clinical diagnosis of AD. Several novel imaging modalities have emerged as alternatives that can accurately and vividly display the changes in blood flow and metabolism in each brain area and enable physicians and researchers to gain insights into the generation and progression of the cerebro-microvascular pathologies of AD. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on microvascular perfusion imaging modalities and their application in AD, including MRI (dynamic susceptibility contrast-MRI, arterial spin labeling-MRI), CT (cerebral CT perfusion imaging), emission computed tomography (positron emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)), transcranial doppler ultrasonography (TCD), and retinal microvascular imaging (optical coherence tomography imaging, computer-assisted methods for evaluating retinal vasculature).

Keywords
Alzheimer's disease
perfusion imaging
MRI
CT
PET
Funding
82202177/National Natural Science Foundation of China
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