AbstractTranscranial Doppler (TCD) blood flow velocity has been extensively used in biomedical research as it provides a cost-effective and relatively simple approach to assess changes in cerebral blood flow dynamics and track cerebrovascular health status. In this paper, we introduce a new TCD based timing index, TITCD, as an indicator of vascular stiffening and vascular health. We use two different datasets, D1 and D2 with 38 and 55 subjects, respectively to investigate the correlations of the new index and the existing indices, namely the pulsatility index (PITCD) and the augmentation index (AITCD), with age, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) blood flow pulsatility index (PIMRI). Comparing the correlation results, AITCD and TITCD both showed strong correlations with age (rD1 = 0.71, rD2 = 0.58 and rD1 = 0.69, rD2 = 0.50 respectively). While, PITCD had a significant correlation with age only in one of the datasets (rD2 = 0.41). The new TITCD index also showed better correlations with CRF (rD1 = −0.77) and PIMRI (rD1 = 0.50) compared to AITCD (rD1 = − 0.65 and rD1 = 0.33, respectively) and PITCD (no significant correlations with CRF or PIMRI). The proposed index has a much clearer relationship with vascular aging factors such as stiffness and cerebrovascular resistance (CVR) and therefore had the strongest correlations with CRF.
The Functional Role of Garlic and Bioactive Components in Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Health: What We Do Know
