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Clinically feasible functional MRI providing independent assessments of cerebrovascular stiffness and microcirculation in typical aging and Alzheimer's Disease cohorts

Award Number: F30AG084336
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: FELLOWSHIP/SCHOLARSHIP/STUDENT LOANS
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 08/14/2023
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/13/2027

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Clinically feasible functional MRI providing independent assessments of cerebrovascular stiffness and microcirculation in typical aging and Alzheimer's Disease cohorts - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia worldwide currently affecting over 50 million people. The pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s dementia is complex and multifactorial, however, decreases in cerebrovascular function have been linked to disease progression. Despite the role vascular health plays in the prognosis of AD, the ability to assess intracranial vascular integrity is limited. There is a critical need to assess vascular properties sensitive to microvascular function and arterial stiffness to understand why and how vascular health is a substantial risk factor for AD dementia. The right tool will be able to assess multiple cerebrovascular health metrics and monitor potential interventions targeting the vascular system in the treatment of AD dementia. This study aims to utilize a conventional resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) scan to assess arterial stiffness and microvascular health through the development and implementation of specialized image processing techniques. These metrics will be applied to two large datasets available from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) – Aging and the Indiana Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (IADRC). Using the HCP dataset, we will assess vascular changes in a typically aging sample (aims 1 & 2). With the IADRC dataset, we will assess the associations of cerebrovascular health with cognitive function across a spectrum of cognitive impairment (aim 3). The central hypothesis is that measures sensitive to arterial stiffness and microvascular function derived from specialized rs-fMRI image processing will significantly correlate with typical aging and cognitive impairment in the spectrum of AD pathology. The central hypothesis will be tested with the following aims: Aim 1: Assess the correlation of cerebral artery stiffness and age using rs-fMRI-derived arterial pulse propagation mapping. Aim 2: Evaluate rs-fMRI-derived cerebral transit time (CTT) in the HCP-aging dataset. Aim 3: Determine whether rs-fMRI-derived arterial stiffness and CTT in the AD-spectrum are significantly associated with cognitive impairment. The measures of arterial stiffness and microvascular function will provide greater insight into the influence of vascular health on AD dementia and may be used in the future to monitor intervention status. The entire pipeline with detailed demo code developed in this project will be openly shared to allow other researchers to extract these vascular metrics from standard rs-fMRI data and study other pathologies with known cerebrovascular involvement, resulting in a high clinical impact.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $54,538 )
2025	2025	PURDUE UNIVERSITY	2550 NORTHWESTERN AVE # 1100	WEST LAFAYETTE	IN	47906	TIPPECANOE	USA	Aging Research	000	3	8/6/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$54,538
														Subtotal = $54,538

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $53,974 )
2024	2024	PURDUE UNIVERSITY	2550 NORTHWESTERN AVE # 1100	WEST LAFAYETTE	IN	47906	TIPPECANOE	USA	Aging Research	000	2	8/7/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$53,974
														Subtotal = $53,974

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $52,694 )
2023	2023	PURDUE UNIVERSITY	2550 NORTHWESTERN AVE STE 1900	WEST LAFAYETTE	IN	47906	TIPPECANOE	USA	Aging Research	001	1	8/22/2023	NEW	$0
2023	2023	PURDUE UNIVERSITY	2550 NORTHWESTERN AVE STE 1900	WEST LAFAYETTE	IN	47906	TIPPECANOE	USA	Aging Research	002	1	9/11/2023	NEW	$0
2023	2023	PURDUE UNIVERSITY	2550 NORTHWESTERN AVE STE 1900	WEST LAFAYETTE	IN	47906	TIPPECANOE	USA	Aging Research	000	1	8/14/2023	NEW	$52,694
														Subtotal = $52,694

Grand Total All Awards = $161,206

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Clinically feasible functional MRI providing independent assessments of cerebrovascular stiffness and microcirculation in typical aging and Alzheimer's Disease cohorts

Award Number: F30AG084336

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: FELLOWSHIP/SCHOLARSHIP/STUDENT LOANS

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 08/14/2023

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/13/2027

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