{"doi":"10.1002/jmri.70212","title":"Association Between Gas‐Free Cerebrovascular Reactivity ( <scp>CVR</scp> ) and Cognitive Function in Older Adults With a High Risk for Vascular Dementia","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) is the second leading cause of dementia. Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) is a promising biomarker for VCID. However, CVR is not commonly measured in clinical practice due to logistical difficulties in applying a hypercapnia challenge during MR imaging. PURPOSE: To investigate whether CVR measured by intermittent breath modulation (bm-CVR) without hypercapnia gas-inhalation can be a sensitive biomarker in VCID. STUDY TYPE: Prospective cohort study. SUBJECTS: Eighty-two participants (aged 66.8 ± 6.8 years, 54 females, 28 males) with normal cognition (N = 36), mild cognitive impairment (MCI, N = 37), or mild dementia (N = 9). FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: 3.0 T; Blood-oxygenation-level-dependence (BOLD) MRI. ASSESSMENT: CVR was measured with BOLD MRI using intermittent breath modulation. Cognitive function was measured with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score, cognitive domains scores, and a global composite cognitive score. Physical function was measured with gait-speed and chair-stand test scores. STATISTICAL TESTS: Multi-linear regression models were performed within the participants to test the associations between bm-CVR and measures of cognitive and physical functions. A p value < 0.05 was considered significant. Bonferroni multiple comparison correction was performed when multiple cognitive domains were tested. RESULTS: Whole-brain bm-CVR values were significantly associated with the diagnosis group of normal, MCI, and early dementia (β = -3.00%/mm Hg, 95% confidence interval (CI) [-5.42, -0.58]), and were lower in the impaired participants relative to participants with normal cognition (β = -2.18, CI [-3.91, -0.45]). Bm-CVR was positively associated with global cognition measured by both MoCA (β = 14.73, CI [1.74, 27.73]) and composite cognitive score (β = 2.22, CI [0.77, 3.66]). For domain-specific cognitive scores, bm-CVR was significantly associated with processing speed (β = 3.19, CI [1.36, 5.02]) and language (β = 2.81, CI [0.70, 4.94]), but not with executive function (p = 0.43) or episodic memory (p = 0.79). DATA CONCLUSION: Bm-CVR is a sensitive biomarker for VCID. This gas-free CVR method may be a more practical approach than hypercapnia gas-inhalation CVR for characterizing vascular pathology. EVIDENCE LEVEL: 2. TECHNICAL EFFICACY: Stage 2.","journal":"Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging","year":2025,"id":554568,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9652,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1452399,"name":"Elham Krimigharighi","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":578578,"name":"Huajun Liang","orcid":"0000-0002-3118-6296","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105245,"name":"Andrew Chan","orcid":"0000-0003-3434-7283","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1452400,"name":"Linda Dongxia Chang","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":320066,"name":"Peiying Liu","orcid":"0000-0003-0830-5960","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1452398,"name":"Fariba Badrzadeh","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":34,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:54:50.112989Z","pmid":"41431429","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}