Background And Purpose: Incidental findings on brain MRI and variations of the circle of Willis (CoW) are relatively common among the general population. Ethnic differences have been described before, but few studies have explored the prevalence of incidental intracranial cerebrovascular findings and CoW variants in the setting of a single multiethnic cohort. The purpose of this investigation was to describe both incidental cerebrovascular findings and the morphology of the CoW on high-resolution 3T TOF-MRA in a UK tri-ethnic population-based cohort and to present updated prevalence estimates and morphologic reference values.
Materials And Methods: We studied participants from the UK Southall and Brent REvisited study who underwent 3T brain MRI between 2014 and 2018. TOF-MRA images were assessed for the presence of incidental cerebrovascular findings and used to determine CoW anatomy.
Results: Seven hundred fifty participants (mean age, 71.28 [SD, 6.46] years; range, 46-90 years; 337 women), 322 White Europeans, 253 South Asians, and 175 African Caribbeans were included. Incidental cerebrovascular findings were observed in 84 subjects (11.2%, 95% CI, 9.0%-13.7%; 36 women; 42.86%, 95% CI, 32.11%-54.12%), with cerebral aneurysms being the most frequent followed by intracranial arterial stenoses with the highest prevalence among South Asians compared with White European (OR: 2.72; 95% CI, 1.22-6.08; = .015) and African Caribbean subjects (OR: 2.79; 95% CI, 1.00-7.82; = .051). Other findings included arteriovenous malformations and infundibula. The CoW was found to be more often complete in women than in men (25.22% compared with 18.41%, = .024) and in African Caribbean (34.86%) compared with White European (19.19%) and South Asian (14.23%) subjects ( < .001 each).
Conclusions: Intracranial arterial stenoses were independently associated with ethnicity after adjusting for vascular risk factors, having the highest prevalence among South Asians. The prevalence of aneurysms was higher than that in previous population-based studies. We observed anatomic differences in the CoW configuration among women, men, and ethnicities.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11543068 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3174/ajnr.A8402 | DOI Listing |
Brain Res Bull
January 2025
Department of Pharmacology, School of Basic Medicine, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China; Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, School of Basic Medicine, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China. Electronic address:
The arachidonic acid metabolic pathway is a classic inflammatory pathway. 12/15-lipoxygenase (LOX), a member of the lipoxygenase family that metabolizes arachidonic acid, has been implicated in the pathogenesis of numerous central nervous system (CNS) diseases. Ischemic stroke is a devastating disease in which the occlusion of cerebral arteries leads to a series of pathophysiological changes in brain tissue, triggering an inflammatory cascade within the brain that results in neuroinflammation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neural Eng
January 2025
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, MetroHealth Medical Center, 4229 Pearl Road, Suite N4-13, Cleveland, Ohio, 44109-1998, UNITED STATES.
Ipsilateral motor evoked potentials (iMEPs) are believed to represent cortically evoked excitability of uncrossed brainstem-mediated pathways. In the event of extensive injury to (crossed) corticospinal pathways, which can occur following a stroke, uncrossed ipsilateral pathways may serve as an alternate resource to support the recovery of the paretic limb. However, iMEPs, even in neurally intact people, can be small, infrequent, and noisy, so discerning them in stroke survivors is very challenging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurology
February 2025
Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada.
Background And Objective: It is unclear whether variation in covert cerebrovascular disease prevalence is attributable to ethnic differences or to other factors. We aimed to examine the associations of country of residence with covert vascular brain injury (VBI) and cognitive dysfunction among Chinese adults residing in Canada and China.
Methods: This was a multisite cross-sectional study of Chinese adults aged 40-80 years in the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Healthy Minds (CAHHM; January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2018) and Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiological-Mind (PURE-MIND; November 1, 2010, to July 31, 2015) cohorts living in Canada and China.
Neurology
February 2025
Department of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Changzhou, China.
Background And Objectives: Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) is a key enzyme that regulates folate and homocysteine metabolism. Genetic variation in has been implicated in cerebrovascular disease risk, although research in diverse populations is lacking. We thus aimed to investigate the effect of genetically predicted MTHFR activity on risk of ischemic stroke (IS) and its main subtypes using a multiancestry Mendelian randomization (MR) approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurology
January 2025
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Background And Objectives: Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) represents the ability of cerebral blood vessels to regulate blood flow in response to vasoactive stimuli and is related to cognition in cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative conditions. However, few studies have examined CVR in the medial temporal lobe, known to be affected early in Alzheimer disease and to influence memory function. We aimed to examine whether medial temporal CVR is associated with memory function in older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!