ABSTRACT
Diabetes mellitus (DM) impairs cerebral waste clearance (CWC) and induces cerebral vascular dysfunction,
resulting in cognitive decline. The relationships between CWC and diabetic status have not been fully
investigated. Cerebral endothelial cells constitutively release exosomes, which mediate intercellular
communication. We have demonstrated that administration of exosomes isolated from cerebral endothelial cells
(CE-Exo) of healthy adult rats to DM rats improves cognitive function, minimizes DM-induced cerebral vascular
dysfunction and increases CWC. Waste clearance from the brain parenchyma has an important role in regulating
neurological diseases7, 15-22. We have found increased impairment of the CWC with severity of DM which highly
correlated to cognitive deficits in DM rats (Fig 2&3)12. Currently, studies of efflux pathways of the soluble β-
amyloid (Aβ) within the brain parenchyma have conflicting results between intramural periarterial drainage along
the opposite direction of arterial flow and glymphatic perivenous efflux7, 23, 24. The glymphatic, vascular and
meningeal lymphatic (ML) pathways are all involved in CWC3, 7, 20-22. We have demonstrated that highly sensitive
MRI methods using the superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) enhanced susceptibility weighted imaging (SPIO-
SWI) permit detection of cerebral microvessels and evaluation of CWC in glymphatic, vascular and ML pathways
(Fig 4-6)3, 25, 26. We also performed clinical translation of MRI measurements for CWC and found that the reduced
clearance rate from both the glymphatic and ML pathways was significantly associated with aging in patients14.
However, several critical issues related to clinical translation of CWC have not been resolved. Based on our
novel preliminary data, we posit that the SPIO-SWI technique permits analysis of the relative contributions of the
component vascular, glymphatic and ML systems to CWC, and thereby provides insight into their roles in
mediating cognitive dysfunction in the aged diabetic animal with and without therapeutic intervention. The
validation of MRI CWC measurements in current proposal could resolve the issues for clinical translation. To test
these hypotheses, we will first (Aim 1) investigate the effects of CE-Exo treatment on alterations of DM
associated CWC, vascular, molecular, and cognitive responses using MRI, fluorescent imaging, and immune-
histopathological analysis, and then (Aim 2) investigate the effects of CE-Exo treatment on the component
contributions of efflux pathways amount vascular, glymphatic and ML systems during waste clearance and their
relationships with vascular dysfunction and cognitive deficits in the aged DM animals with and without therapeutic
intervention.