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Aging is a multifaceted process involving both structural and metabolic alterations. Cerebral oxygen-extraction-fraction (OEF) is an important physiological parameter indexing the brain’s oxygen metabolism. In this work, we assessed regional OEF in young and older adults, and investigated its associations with aging and white-matter-hyperintensities. We observed significant age-related increase in cortical OEF but not in subcortical OEF, suggesting that aging may have different effects on tissue metabolism in cortical and subcortical regions. Furthermore, we found a significant inverse correlation of WMH with OEF in internal-cerebral-veins, implying that OEF of subcortical structures may be useful in predicting WMH.
Song et al. (Wed,) studied this question.