Fig. 5: Spatiotemporal patterns of coronary artery atherosclerosis.

a Plaque PAV ranks among AHA-18 segments. Violin plots and lines display the distributions and means of segment-level plaque PAV values, stratified by sex (all, gray; female, red; male, blue). b Spatial distribution of plaque prevalence in the Chinese population. The probability of plaque occurrence at each location on the 3D coronary atlas is shown for all, male, and female groups. The difference map is calculated by subtracting the male probability from the female probability at each position. Segment names are labeled in gray text. For clarity, specific segments are indicated with their AHA-18 numbers: D1 (9), D2 (10), OM1 (12), OM2 (14), L-PDA (15), RAMUS (17), and L-PLB (18). Other coronary artery segments are labeled with their standard abbreviations. c Spatial distribution of plaque, high-risk plaque, and obstructive stenosis prevalence on four main branches (flatten view). Prevalence values are displayed for all (the 1st row) and different age groups (the 2nd row). The x-axis represents relative positions on the atlas segment (0–1), and the y axis represents prevalence (%), with a uniform range of 0–72 across subplots. d Spatiotemporal distribution of plaque prevalence by sex and age groups.