A recent paper from the lab, led by Dr. Rachael Stickland, identifies a positive correlation between baseline cerebral blood flow (CBF) and Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent cerebrovascular reactivity (BOLD-CVR), measured with MRI. This positive correlation is seen between and within subjects and is strengthened by the addition of a breathing task to a resting-state acquisition and by optimizing for hemodynamic lag effects in CVR modeling. This work demonstrates how two analytical factors affect the observed relationship between baseline CBF and BOLD-CVR in healthy populations; the relationship becomes even more relevant to understand when interpreting results in
populations with altered vascular baselines or impaired cerebrovascular reserve.

This work was performed in collaboration with Dr. César Caballero-Gaudes’ lab at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language in Spain.

Check out the paper here!