There’s nothing “mild” about mild cognitive impairment or MCI.

An estimated 18 percent of the world’s population has MCI and, sadly, anywhere from 10 to 15 percent will progress to dementia.

While there’s no cure for MCI, dementia or Alzheimer’s, previous research has shown that early detection and monitoring can slow the destructiveness of the condition and prolong life.

But for decades, doctors have relied on physical exams and assessments to gauge mental capacity. Neurological exams, lab tests and brain imagining have helped rule out other conditions.  

Brain imaging has also come closer to finding physical signs of cognitive decline, based on previous research connecting high blood pressure and high cholesterol with MCI.

But research from the OU College of Medicine may have found a better predictor for MCI in the brain’s blood vessels…

A deeper focus on the brain’s blood vessels

“People with mild cognitive impairment are at highest risk for the next step, which is dementia,” said Calin Prodan, M.D., a professor of neurology in the OU College of Medicine and a co-author of the paper.

“We’re trying to decipher the ‘fingerprints’ of mild cognitive impairment — what happens to the brain when a person moves from healthy aging to mild cognitive impairment, and is there something we can do to intervene and prevent the decline to dementia?”

He and his team focused on the brain’s vasculature, or network of blood vessels, and how it behaves differently in older adults with MCI.

Brain measurements were taken in people at three stages of life: young adults, older adults with aging but healthy brains and older adults with MCI. Each group played a short memory challenge game on a computer while having the blood flow in their brains measured. They saw that:

• Blood flow increased in the brains of the young adults, giving their brains the energy needed to meet the demands of the game, a process known as neurovascular coupling.
• In people with healthy aging brains, the blood flow didn’t increase as much, but their brains compensated by engaging other regions to help with the challenge, a process called functional connectivity.
• In the brains of older adults with MCI, not only was the blood flow greatly reduced, they lost functional connectivity.

“People with mild cognitive impairment have lost that compensation mechanism,” says Dr. Cameron Owens, lead author of the study. “There is a drastic change in brain activity in those with mild cognitive impairment.”

The role of CEEVs

The researchers also conducted another assessment, a liquid biopsy, to gain more insight. This blood analysis measured the amount of cerebrovascular endothelial extracellular vesicles (CEEVs), tiny particles released from the cells lining the brain’s blood vessels. Existing research shows when the inner lining of these blood vessels is damaged, it secretes CEEVs.

People with MCI had more CEEVs in their brains than those with healthy aging brains. And MRI images confirmed that people with higher levels of CEEVs also had more ischemic damage, which means the small vessels in their brains did not receive adequate blood supply.

These findings could lead to earlier prevention or treatment of memory problems before they progress to dementia. That’s the hope of the researchers who are in year two of a four-year study.

In the meantime, why not work on improving your brain’s blood flow?

Research that used lifestyle data from the famous Framingham Heart Study found that 18 percent of adults 50 and older had healthy blood vessels. But in folks over 70 — only 1 percent did.

How did they do it? People who had healthy blood vessels also had healthy lifestyles that included exercise. Exercise, even just walking, gets your blood pumping. But if you haven’t been active and you’re getting up in age, you may need extra help.

That’s as simple as eating or drinking blueberries. Researchers at the University of Exeter in England found older adults who drank blueberry juice every day improved their cognition scores by 40 percent and their memory scores by 30 percent.

MRI scans of those who drank blueberry juice showed increases in both brain blood flow and gray matter activity.

Bottoms up!

Sources:

1. Brain vasculature changes important for predicting cognitive impairment — EurekAlert!

2. Neurovascular coupling, functional connectivity, and cerebrovascular endothelial extracellular vesicles as biomarkers of mild cognitive impairment — Alzheimer’s & Dementia

3. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) — Mayo Clinic

4. Remnant cholesterol and mild cognitive impairment: A cross-sectional study — Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience