Regional in vivo transit time measurements of aortic pulse wave velocity in mice with high-field CMR at 17.6 Tesla.
BACKGROUND
Transgenic mouse models are increasingly used to study the pathophysiology of human cardiovascular diseases. The aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) is an indirect measure for vascular stiffness and a marker for cardiovascular risk.


RESULTS
This study presents a cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) transit time (TT) method that allows the determination of the PWV in the descending murine aorta by analyzing blood flow waveforms. Systolic flow pulses were recorded with a temporal resolution of 1 ms applying phase velocity encoding. In a first step, the CMR method was validated by pressure waveform measurements on a pulsatile elastic vessel phantom. In a second step, the CMR method was applied to measure PWVs in a group of five eight-month-old apolipoprotein E deficient (ApoE(-/-)) mice and an age matched group of four C57Bl/6J mice. The ApoE(-/-) group had a higher mean PWV (PWV = 3.0 ± 0.6 m/s) than the C57Bl/6J group (PWV = 2.4 ± 0.4 m/s). The difference was statistically significant (p = 0.014).


CONCLUSIONS
The findings of this study demonstrate that high field CMR is applicable to non-invasively determine and distinguish PWVs in the arterial system of healthy and diseased groups of mice.
Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Lehrstuhl für Experimentelle Physik 5, Am Hubland, Würzburg, Germany. parczyk@physik.uni-wuerzburg.de
Marco
M
Parczyk
Volker
V
Herold
Gert
G
Klug
Wolfgang R
WR
Bauer
Eberhard
E
Rommel
Peter M
PM
Jakob
D000818:Animals; D001013:Aorta, Thoracic / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001057:Apolipoproteins E / Q000172:deficiency / Q000235:genetics; D050197:Atherosclerosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004548:Elasticity; D005260:Female; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011673:Pulsatile Flow / Q000235:genetics; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013997:Time Factors
D001057:Apolipoproteins E