Impaired Cerebral Vasomotor Reactivity in Alzheimer’s Disease

Background. Recent studies have shown that cerebral vascularity may be impaired in Alzheimer’s disease. Cerebral vasomotor reactivity could be an important biomarker for this pathology. Aims. The aim of this study was to investigate the alterations in cerebralvascularmotorreactivityinAlzheimer’sdiseasesubjectsandtoassociatethesechangeswiththeircognitivescores.Methods. WerecruitedsubjectswithadiagnosisofAlzheimer’sdiseaseandhealthycontrols.Demographic,clinical,imaging,andcognitive testwereobtained.Thenallparticipantsperformedacerebralvascularmotorreactivitytestwith7%CO2andcerebralbloodflow velocities(CBFV)wererecordedwithtranscranialdopplerultrasoundbeforeandafterthetest.Results.Werecruited45subjects, 26(21female)Alzheimer’sdiseaseparticipantsand19(15female)healthycontrols.Therewerenodifferencesinbaselinecerebral blood flow velocities between the groups. After the cerebral vasomotor reactivity test, absolute mean difference in mean CBFV (ΔCBFV-m)was 8.70±4.14 versus4.81±6.96 (p