Neuro–vascular interactions articles from across Nature Portfolio

Using quantitative brain imaging, the authors show opposite fMRI BOLD signal to metabolic activity due to variable oxygen extraction across the human cortex. This questions the canonical interpretation of fMRI signal in terms of neuronal activity.

Neurovascular interaction is critical for normal brain vascular development. Here, the authors show that neuronal NMDARs regulate brain vascular development via VEGF-induced global Ca2+ activities of endothelial tip cells.

In this issue, Stamenkovic et al. describe deep in vivo imaging of the brain vasculature to document its evolution during aging, which identifies a unique vulnerability at the site of convergence of capillaries toward major veins. They propose that pericyte and capillary instability there cause mild hypoperfusion, ultimately leading to myelin degradation.

We present a cost-effective normalization strategy for spatial metabolomics using uniformly ¹³C-labelled yeast extract, which addresses limitations of conventional methods and the physico-chemical complexity of water-soluble metabolites. Our approach outperforms standard normalization strategies and reveals hitherto unrecognized metabolic remodelling in the cortex after stroke, demonstrating its applicability.

In a mouse model of multiple sclerosis, trafficking into the brain parenchyma of the peripheral myeloid cells that are involved in the symptomaptology is shown to occur predominantly via the velum interpositum, a leptomeningeal tract that runs underneath the hippocampal formation.

Blocking voltage-gated calcium channels reduces capillary narrowing by pericytes and improves cerebral blood flow in a mouse model of Alzheimer disease.

Neuronal activity consumes cellular energy and generates carbon dioxide (CO₂). To counter this metabolic challenge, synaptic signalling communicates with nearby microvasculature to increase local blood flow. Is this process solely based on feedforward synaptic signalling, or is the generated CO₂ also involved? This question was addressed in mice in a new Nature Communications publication by Tournissac and colleagues where they showed that neurovascular coupling is not affected by exogenous CO₂ or its associated acidification.