Neuroimaging meets neurophysiology: vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in early Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Abstract

Angiogenesis may play an important role in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Previous in vitro and in vivo studies suggest a link between angiogenesis and cerebral blood flow (CBF) in AD; however, this has never been studied clinically. In this sample of study participants with early AD (n = 15), serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), an angiogenesis biomarker, was negatively associated with regional CBF (rCBF) in the angular gyrus even after bootstrapping at a repetition of 5000 and controlling for age, sex, and diagnosis (β = -0.015, SE = 0.006, p = .02, f²= 0.27, p_bootstrapped = .049). Sex-stratified subgroup analyses showed a strong negative correlation between rCBF in the angular gyrus and log-VEGF in males (n = 7; r = -0.78, p = .04), but not in females (n = 8; r = -0.16, p = .7). These results support an association between angiogenesis and CBF in early AD that should be further investigated in longitudinal studies and may have relevance for future therapeutic interventions in AD.