Cerebral Blood Flow in Midlife Obesity: Associations with Visceral and Subcutaneous Abdominal Adipose Tissue

Motivation: Understanding the role of midlife obesity in Alzheimer disease (AD) risk is key to AD prevention. Goal(s): We aimed to investigate the association between obesity and abdominal visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue (VAT, and SAT) and brain perfusion, altered early in AD. Approach: For this aim, we performed brain and abdominal MRI scans to compare absolute cerebral blood flow (CBF), derived from pCASL sequence, between the obese vs. non-obese, the high- vs. low-VAT and high- vs. low-VAT groups. Results: A lower whole-brain CBF was observed in the obese vs. non-obese and high-VAT vs. low-VAT, but not between high- and low-SAT groups. Impact: Lower brain perfusion in individuals with obesity and higher VAT, especially in AD-related areas like middle temporal cortex, highlights midlife visceral obesity’s role in AD development. Future studies should explore the association of AD neuroimaging markers with body mass components.