The severity of microstrokes depends on local vascular topology and baseline perfusion

Abstract
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Abstract

Cortical microinfarcts are linked to pathologies like cerebral amyloid angiopathy and dementia. Despite their relevance for disease progression, microinfarcts often remain undetected and the smallest scale of blood flow disturbance has not yet been identified. We employed blood flow simulations in realistic microvascular networks from the mouse cortex to quantify the impact of single capillary occlusions. Our simulations reveal that the severity of a microstroke is strongly affected by the local vascular topology and the baseline flow rate in the occluded capillary. The largest changes in perfusion are observed in capillaries with two in- and two outflows. This specific topological configuration only occurs with a frequency of 8%. The majority of capillaries has one in- and one outflow and is likely designed to efficiently supply oxygen and nutrients. Taken together, microstrokes bear potential to induce a cascade of local disturbances in the surrounding tissue, which might accumulate and impair energy supply locally.

Data availability

We provide all time-averaged simulation results as well as relevant analysis scripts.

The following previously published data sets were used

1. P Blinder
2. PS Tsai
3. JP Kaufhold
4. PM Knutsen
5. H Suhl
6. D Kleinfeld
(2013) The cortical angiome: an interconnected vascular network with noncolumnar patterns of blood flow
doi:10.1038/nn.3426.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3426

Article and author information

Author details

Franca Schmid

Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

For correspondence
franca.schmid@uzh.ch

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0689-9366
Giulia Conti

Institute of Fluid Dynamics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Patrick Jenny

Institute of Fluid Dynamics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Bruno Weber

Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-9089-0689

Funding

University of Zurich - Forschungskredit (FK-19-045)

Franca Schmid

European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Program for Research and Innovation (Specific Grant Agreement No. 720270 (Human Brain Project SGA1))

Franca Schmid

European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Program for Research and Innovation (Specific Grant Agreement No. 785907 (Human Brain Project SGA2))

Franca Schmid

Swiss National Science Foundation (310030_182703)

Bruno Weber

Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF CR23I2_166707)

Bruno Weber

Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF CR23I2_166707)

Patrick Jenny

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.