Mounting evidence suggests cerebrovascular dysfunction plays an important mechanistic role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and that cerebral white matter (WM) is especially vulnerable to the effects of microvascular dysfunction. Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL), a class of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques, is a popular method for assessing cerebral hemodynamics due to its non-invasive nature. However, inaccurate ASL methodology has prevented the systematic characterization of WM microvascular health and hemodynamics, even across healthy aging, thus hindering our understanding of cerebrovascular contributions to AD development. My project investigates whether velocity-selective ASL (VSASL) is a more robust measure of WM cerebral blood flow (CBF) than conventional techniques and can better capture age-related change in CBF.

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