20.500.12556/DiRROS-29265 Neurovascular phase coherence is altered in Alzheimer’s disease Alzheimer’s disease is the commonest form of dementia, but its cause still remains elusive. It is characterized by neurodegeneration, with amyloid-beta and tau aggregation. Recently, however, the roles of the vasculature and the neurovascular unit are being highlighted as important for disease progression. In particular, there is reduced microvascular density, and altered gene expression in vascular and glial cells. Structural changes naturally impact the functioning of the neurovascular unit, and the goal of the study was to quantify the corresponding changes in vivo, non-invasively. Our assessment is based on recordings of brain oxygenation, neuronal and cardiorespiratory activities, captured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy, electroencephalogram, electrocardiogram and respiration effort, respectively. Two groups were compared: an Alzheimer’s disease group (N = 19) and a control group (N = 20) of similar age. The time-series were analysed using methods that can capture multi-scale and time-varying oscillations such as the wavelet transform power and wavelet phase coherence. The Alzheimer’s disease group shows a significant decrease in the power of brain oxygenation oscillations compared to the control group. There is also a significant global reduction in the phase coherence between brain oxygenation time-series. The neurovascular phase coherence around 0.1 Hz is also significantly reduced in the Alzheimer’s disease group. In addition, the average respiration rate is increased in the Alzheimer’s disease group compared to the control group. We show that the phase coherence between vascular and neuronal activities is reduced in Alzheimer’s disease compared to the control group, indicating altered functioning of the neurovascular unit. The brain oxygenation dynamics reveals reduced power and coordination of oscillations, especially in frequency ranges that are associated with vasomotion. This could lead to reduced oxygen delivery to the brain, which could affect ATP production, and potentially reduce amyloid-beta clearance. These changes in neurovascular dynamics have potential for early diagnosis, as a marker of disease progression, and for evaluating the effect of interventions. neurovascular unit time-frequency analysis multi-scale oscillatory analysis phase coherence brain oxygenation nevrožilna enota časovno-frekvenčna analiza večnivojska analiza oscilacij fazna koherenca oksigenacija možganov true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Neznano 2026-05-05 11:49:42 2026-05-05 11:49:42 2026-05-06 03:51:47 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2025 0 0 Nasl. z nasl. zaslona; Opis vira z dne 30. 4. 2026; 16 str. issue 1, [article no.] fcaf007 Vol. 7 2025 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 616.831-073.7-71:616.894 2632-1297 10.1093/braincomms/fcaf007 276756739 RAZ_Bjerkan_Juliane_2025.pdf RAZ_Bjerkan_Juliane_2025.pdf 1 997BE8D28504CE0E8C2FE846056FCCA8 d1aa6f817f2e3082c13d1db7dfdabcdc49852ca252678db7c28fa0f60dbf34c8 e5837cb2-4867-11f1-969d-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=43794 https://academic.oup.com/braincomms/article/7/1/fcaf007/7994547 1 bf037d88-4867-11f1-969d-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=43793 Univerzitetni klinični center Ljubljana 0 0 0