title: Cerebral autoregulation in Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: Cerebral autoregulation aims to stabilize blood flow to the brain during variations in perfusion pressure, thus protecting the brain against the risks of low or high systemic blood pressure. This vital mechanism is severely impaired in the transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (AD) that abundantly produces amyloid-β peptide β(1-42). These observations have been extrapolated to human AD, wherein impairment of autoregulation could have important implications for the clinical management and prevention of AD. Research on cerebral autoregulation in human AD, however, has only recently become available. Contrary to the animal models, preliminary studies suggest that cerebral autoregulation is preserved in patients with AD. Further research is urgently needed to elucidate this discrepancy in the current literature, given the accumulating evidence that implicates cerebrovascular pathology in AD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geriatric Medicine, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Alzheimer Centre Nijmegen, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. j.claassen@ger.umcn.nl
authors.forename: Jurgen A H R
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Claassen
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006706:Homeostasis; D006801:Humans; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D013055:Spectrophotometry, Infrared; D017585:Ultrasonography, Doppler, Transcranial