TY  - JOUR
AU  - Garcia Garcia, Berta
AU  - Mattern, Hendrik
AU  - Vockert, Niklas
AU  - Yakupov, Renat
AU  - Schreiber, Frank
AU  - Spallazzi, Marco
AU  - Perosa, Valentina
AU  - Haghikia, Aiden
AU  - Speck, Oliver
AU  - Düzel, Emrah
AU  - Maass, Anne
AU  - Schreiber, Stefanie
TI  - Vessel distance mapping: A novel methodology for assessing vascular-induced cognitive resilience.
JO  - NeuroImage
VL  - 274
SN  - 1053-8119
CY  - Orlando, Fla.
PB  - Academic Press
M1  - DZNE-2023-00550
SP  - 120094
PY  - 2023
AB  - The association between cerebral blood supply and cognition has been widely discussed in the recent literature. One focus of this discussion has been the anatomical variability of the circle of Willis, with morphological differences being present in more than half of the general population. While previous studies have attempted to classify these differences and explore their contribution to hippocampal blood supply and cognition, results have been controversial. To disentangle these previously inconsistent findings, we introduce Vessel Distance Mapping (VDM) as a novel methodology for evaluating blood supply, which allows for obtaining vessel pattern metrics with respect to the surrounding structures, extending the previously established binary classification into a continuous spectrum. To accomplish this, we manually segmented hippocampal vessels obtained from high-resolution 7T time-of-flight MR angiographic imaging in older adults with and without cerebral small vessel disease, generating vessel distance maps by computing the distances of each voxel to its nearest vessel. Greater values of VDM-metrics, which reflected higher vessel distances, were associated with poorer cognitive outcomes in subjects affected by vascular pathology, while this relation was not observed in healthy controls. Therefore, a mixed contribution of vessel pattern and vessel density is proposed to confer cognitive resilience, consistent with previous research findings. In conclusion, VDM provides a novel platform, based on a statistically robust and quantitative method of vascular mapping, for addressing a variety of clinical research questions.
KW  - Humans
KW  - Aged
KW  - Magnetic Resonance Imaging: methods
KW  - Cognition
KW  - Cerebral Small Vessel Diseases: pathology
KW  - Hippocampus: pathology
KW  - Cerebral small vessel disease (Other)
KW  - Hippocampus (Other)
KW  - Vessel distance mapping (Other)
KW  - circle of Willis (Other)
KW  - cognition (Other)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:37028734
DO  - DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120094
UR  - https://pub.dzne.de/record/258088
ER  -