Vasomotion in Neurovascular Physiology: Integrating Brain-Body Communication and Microvascular Homeostasis

Vasomotion refers to spontaneous rhythmic oscillations in microvascular tone that are independent of cardiac and respiratory cycles and contribute to the regulation of tissue perfusion. These oscillations arise from intrinsic vascular mechanisms and are modulated by autonomic, cardiometabolic and neuroendocrine signals. Although traditionally considered a local vascular phenomenon, emerging evidence suggests that microvascular oscillations may exhibit temporal relationships across different vascular beds. Whether shared physiological inputs contribute to the coordination of vasomotion between cerebral and systemic microcirculation remains largely unexplored. This review covers the cellular basis of vasomotion and the potential contributors of autonomic nervous system, cardiometabolic signals and neuroendocrine mediators in cerebral-systemic microvascular interactions. We propose that these extrinsic influences constitute a superimposed regulatory layer that may modulate the amplitude, frequency, and phase of locally generated vasomotor oscillations, potentially contributing to coordination across distributed vascular networks while preserving vascular bed-specific regulation. We further discuss experimental approaches for investigating vasomotion across spatial and temporal scales, including intravital imaging, wavelet analysis, phase-coherence assessment, and simultaneous measurements of cerebral and peripheral hemodynamic signals. Methodological limitations, including the difficulty of assigning specific mechanisms to individual frequency bands and inability to establish causality from coherence alone, are also considered. This integrative framework identifies key questions for determining whether coordinated vasomotion contributes to functional coupling between cerebral and systemic microcirculation and helps maintain microvascular homeostasis.