Cortical thinning is associated with brain pulsatility in older adults: An MRI and NIRS study

Aging is accompanied by global brain atrophy occurring unequally across the brain. Cortical thinning is seen with aging with a larger loss in the frontal and temporal subregions. We explored the link between regional cortical thickness and regional cerebral pulsatility. Sixty healthy individuals were divided into two age groups, young (aged 19-31) and older (aged 65-75) adults. Each participant underwent a near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) scan to index regional brain pulsatility from cerebral pulse-transit-time-to-the peak-of-the-pulse (PTTp), an anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a phase-contrast MRI (PC-MRI) scan to measure arterial and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pulsatility. In older adults, the greatest association between cerebral pulsatility and cortical thickness was found in superior and middle temporal and superior, middle and inferior frontal areas, which are the regions perfused first by the internal carotid arteries. This association dropped in the postcentral and superior parietal regions. These findings suggest higher brain pulsatility as a potential risk factor contributing to cortical thinning for some brain regions more than others.