Key result
Age-related hemodynamic changes like arterial stiffening may accelerate cognitive decline in older adults.
Why the study?
Subtle age-related changes in cardiac hemodynamics have emerged as a potential risk factor for abnormal brain aging, even without overt cardiovascular disease.
Subtle age-related changes in cardiac hemodynamics and arterial stiffness are emerging as risk factors for abnormal brain aging and cognitive decline.
May support hemodynamic assessment in cognitive risk evaluation; leaves open whether targeting stiffness alters decline.
It is well known that cardiovascular disease and related vascular risk factors are associated with cognitive decline and worse brain health outcomes among aging adults. Recently, subtle age-related changes in cardiac hemodynamics have been proposed as an emerging risk factor for abnormal brain aging, even in the absence of cardiovascular disease. Changes in cardiac function, vital for determining the total amount of blood available for perfusing the body, and arterial stiffness, important for regulating blood flow delivery, have been associated with compromised brain structure and function among older adults. Such alterations in cardiac output and arterial stiffening may directly affect brain health through blood-brain barrier breakdown or oligemia, or may interact with Alzheimer disease and concomitant pathologies common in aging adults to accelerate cognitive decline. This review examines how age-related alterations in cardiovascular integrity contribute to abnormal brain aging, emphasizing that changes in systemic hemodynamics may compromise brain health before or concurrently with the development of neurodegenerative processes that are common in aging.
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Moore et al. (2021) conducted a review in Cognitive aging and abnormal brain aging. Cardiovascular hemodynamics (cardiac output and arterial stiffness) was evaluated. Age-related alterations in systemic hemodynamics, including changes in cardiac output and arterial stiffening, may compromise brain health and accelerate cognitive decline in aging adults.
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