Affiliation:
1. From the Department of Neurology, University of Tübingen (Germany).
Abstract
Background and Purpose
—During the past decade, transcranial Doppler sonography has widely been used to assess blood flow velocities in the basal intracranial arteries and cerebrovascular reactivity (CR) to various stimuli. Although numerous studies have shown a decline of cerebral blood flow velocity with age, the age dependency of CR, including cerebrovascular CO
2
reactivity, however, is controversial. Recently, we have reported a significant sex-related difference in CR, stressing the need to study the relation between normal aging and CR in both sexes separately.
Methods
—By means of transcranial Doppler sonography, CR was determined in 100 healthy, nonsmoking volunteers (age 20 to 70 years, 10 men and 10 women per decade).
Results
—In men, no change of CR with increasing age could be observed (
P
=0.98). In contrast, CR in women declined significantly, with a step decrease from the 4th to the 5th decades (F=4.413;
P
<0.01) and was significantly higher in the 3rd and 4th compared with the 5th, 6th, and 7th decades (
P
<0.05). Information on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in women of the 6th and 7th decades was obtained retrospectively. HRT was associated with enhanced CR (HRT, n=7 versus non-HRT, n=13;
P
<0.001), with values similar to those found in premenopausal women.
Conclusions
—There are no changes of CR during normal aging in men, whereas CR declines significantly from the 4th to the 5th decades in women. HRT in postmenopausal women appears to enhance CR.
Publisher
Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Subject
Advanced and Specialized Nursing,Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine,Neurology (clinical)
Reference30 articles.
1. Cerebral blood flow and cerebrovascular CO2 reactivity in stroke-age normal controls
2. Adams RJ Nichols FT Hess DC. Normal values and physiologic variables. In: Newell DW Aaslid R eds Transcranial Doppler . New York NY: Raven Press; 1992:41–47.
3. Normal human aging and cerebral vasoconstrictive responses to hypocapnia
Cited by
158 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献