Higher arterial load linked to brain shrinkage and worse thinking
In an analysis of 21,673 UK Biobank participants, higher arterial load was associated with lower cognitive scores, with hippocampal shrinkage mediating about 20% of the relationship.
Limit: The imaging comparison included only 16 patients
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
In an observational study, researchers evaluated 16 patients with mild cognitive impairment and 21,673 UK Biobank participants. In the 16 patients, brain and heart measurements of amyloid-beta, a protein hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, were unrelated. Higher effective arterial elastance, a measure of arterial load on the heart, correlated with more brain amyloid-beta, smaller hippocampal volume and worse thinking ability.
In UK Biobank participants, higher arterial load was independently linked to smaller volumes of the hippocampus, a brain region important for memory, and lower fluid intelligence—the ability to solve unfamiliar problems. Hippocampal shrinkage mediated about 20% of the link between arterial load and cognition. A Mendelian randomization analysis, which uses inherited genetic differences, linked genetically predicted arterial load to smaller hippocampal volume.
Why it matters
In Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline, identifying vascular factors could reveal new targets to protect the aging brain. The authors suggest that lowering arterial load might provide a practical strategy to alter the course of neurodegeneration.
Caveats
The population findings relied on observational data, and the imaging comparison included only 16 patients. The search for genetic variants involved people of European ancestry, and the results were reported in a conference abstract.
