By Laurel White
A new UW–Madison research project aims to shed light on how age and biological sex may affect blood flow control in the brain and how differences in brain blood flow regulation may be early indicators of health conditions such as dementia.
The project, led by Andy Zhou, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Kinesiology, will use the cutting-edge four-dimensional flow MRI technique to measure how blood flow in the brain reacts to activities that mimic daily living. The project will compare the responses of men and women across a range of ages.
Zhou says the research could help inform individualized brain health rehabilitation programs.
“How brain blood flow responds to exercise could be an overlooked mechanism for the aging brain and cognitive decline in older adults,” he says. “What we learn from this study will help us better understand how movement, physical exercise, and rehabilitation programs may benefit individuals as they get older.”
Zhou also points out the project could help researchers identify impairments in blood flow regulation as a potential biomarker for age-related changes in brain structure.
“Currently, there are no known treatments to prevent or reverse the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias — learning more about potential underlying mechanisms to these conditions could be a major step forward for aging adults’ health care,” he says.
The new project is funded by a National Institutes of Health Transition to Aging Research Award and builds on Zhou’s doctoral dissertation, which examined sex differences in muscle fatigue and leg blood flow following a stroke.
Zhou joined the Barnes Lab in the School of Education’s Department of Kinesiology this summer. Other studies from the lab, which is led by Associate Professor Jill Barnes, have broken ground on topics in aging including how menopause affects brain health.