A Spatiotemporal Profile of In Vivo Cerebral Blood Flow Changes Following Intranasal Oxytocin in Humans

An important aspect of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the study of brain hemodynamics, and MR arterial spin labeling (ASL) perfusion imaging has gained wide acceptance as a robust and noninvasive technique. However, the cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements obtained with ASL fMRI have not been fully validated, particularly during global CBF modulations. We present a comparison of cerebral blood flow changes (ΔCBF) measured using a flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery (FAIR) ASL perfusion method to those obtained usingH2O15PET, which is the current gold standard for in vivo imaging of CBF. To study regional and global CBF changes, a group of 10 healthy volunteers were imaged under identical experimental conditions during presentation of 5 levels of visual stimulation and one level of hypercapnia. The CBF changes were compared using 3 types of region-of-interest (ROI) masks. FAIR measurements of CBF changes were found to be slightly lower than those measured with PET (averageΔCBF of21.5±8.2% for FAIR versus28.2±12.8% for PET at maximum stimulation intensity). Nonetheless, there was a strong correlation between measurements of the two modalities. Finally, at-test comparison of the slopes of the linear fits of PET versus ASLΔCBF for all 3 ROI types indicated no significant difference from unity (P>.05).

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Cerebral blood flow predicts differential neurotransmitter activity

10.1101/207407 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Juergen Dukart ◽

Štefan Holiga ◽

Christopher Chatham ◽

Peter Hawkins ◽

Anna Forsyth ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Blood Flow ◽

Cerebral Blood Flow ◽

Mechanisms Of Action ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Neurotransmitter Receptor ◽

Neurotransmitter Systems ◽

Neurotransmitter Activity ◽

Flow Changes ◽

Unknown Link

AbstractApplication of metabolic magnetic resonance imaging measures such as cerebral blood flow in translational medicine is limited by the unknown link of observed alterations to specific neurophysiological processes. In particular, the sensitivity of cerebral blood flow to activity changes in specific neurotransmitter systems remains unclear. We address this question by probing cerebral blood flow in healthy volunteers using seven established drugs with known dopaminergic, serotonergic, glutamatergic and GABAergic mechanisms of action. We use a novel framework aimed at disentangling the observed effects to contribution from underlying neurotransmitter systems. We find for all evaluated compounds a reliable spatial link of respective cerebral blood flow changes with underlying neurotransmitter receptor densities corresponding to their primary mechanisms of action. The strength of these associations with receptor density is mediated by respective drug affinities. These findings suggest that cerebral blood flow is a sensitive brain-wide in-vivo assay of metabolic demands across a variety of neurotransmitter systems in humans.

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