Effect of high carbohydrate high fat diet on hippocampal neurovascular coupling in a rat model of Alzheimer’s Disease

The observed rescue of functional hyperemia with HCHF in established AD, but not in normal aging, is speculated to result from metabolically dysregulated AD brain profiting from calorie-dense food consumption. This work demonstrates a non-invasive neuroimaging assay to assess hippocampal neurovascular function in AD and its vascular comorbidities, offering high translational potential. This assay affords ease of delivering somatosensory stimuli and limited effect of aging and neurodegeneration on somatosensation, making somatosensory protocol a particularly easy one to deploy in patients.