Association of peripheral blood pressure with gray matter volume in 19- to 40-year-old adults

Description: Relation of blood pressure (BP) and (gray matter volume) GMV in 423 healthy adults between 19-40 years without diagnosis of HTN. Includes 3 Tesla T1-weighted structural MR images and BP measurements from four cross-sectional studies that were conducted in Leipzig, Germany, between 2010-2015. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM, in SPM12 + DARTEL) was performed on each dataset separately and results were combined in image-based meta-analyses (in AES-SDM) to assess cumulative effects across datasets. Mean resting BP was assigned to one of four categories: (1) systolic BP<120 mmHg and diastolic BP<80 mmHg, (2) SBP 120-129 mmHg or DBP 80-84 mmHg, (3) SBP 130-139 mmHg or DBP 85-89 mmHg, (4) SBP≥140 mmHg or DBP≥90 mmHg. Contrasts of interest: F-contrast: the overall effect of BP category on GMV. T-contrasts (per sample and per meta-analysis): (1) linear regression with mean SBP, (2) linear regression with mean DBP, (3) category 4 vs. category 1, (4) category 3 vs. category 1, (5) category 2 vs. category 1. All analyses included total intracranial volume (TIV), gender and age as covariates.

Related article: http://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000006947