PhD Student Zuzanna Biesiada

Zuzanna's project is looking at:

Improving the imaging methods used to measure blood vessel activity in the brain 

Cerebrovascular reactivity is the ability of the blood vessels to widen and narrow. In cerebral small vessel disease, this process doesn’t work well, which affects how blood flows round the brain. Cerebrovascular reactivity could be an important way to measure how well new treatments for cerebral small vessel disease are working.

Currently the “gold standard” way of measuring cerebrovascular reactivity is to have the participant breathing in a mixture of gases via a gas mask while in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). However, this method can be uncomfortable and needs specialised equipment.

My PhD project aims to assess how comparable two methods of measuring cerebrovascular reactivity are to each other, what are the best use cases of each, and how reliable and repeatable these methods are.

Tell us about your project

This project explores a simpler alternative, where cerebrovascular reactivity is measured while participants look at a visual display during the scan. Images on the screen naturally increase blood flow in certain areas of the brain.

We aim to find out how these two methods compare, and whether the simpler visual approach is reliable enough to be used more widely. If so, this could make research studies easier and more affordable to run, while making the process more comfortable for people taking part.

Ultimately, this work could help more studies measure cerebrovascular reactivity, support better testing of new treatments, and make taking part in research a more positive experience.

How will this research impact people living with dementia?

MRI scans are already rather uncomfortable, and so making the experience more comfortable could result in more people being willing to get involved or more people remaining in studies for longer.

What does it mean to you to be a part of Alzheimer's Society Doctoral Training Centre?

It’s really great to have a group of people conducting research on a similar topic –Vascular and Immune contributors to dementia– but using very different techniques and approaches. It highlights that, like all things in biology and health, dementia is complex and multifaceted, and we need many different perspectives to see the full picture.