Spontaneous fluctuations in cerebral blood flow regulation: contribution of PaCO2

To investigate the temporal variability of dynamic cerebral autoregulation (CA), the transient response of cerebral blood flow to rapid changes in arterial blood pressure, a new approach was introduced to improve the temporal resolution of dynamic CA assessment. Continuous bilateral recordings of cerebral blood flow velocity (transcranial Doppler, middle cerebral artery), end-tidal Pco(2) (Pet(CO(2)), infrared capnograph), and blood pressure (Finapres) were obtained at rest and during breath hold in 30 young subjects (25 ± 6 yr old) and 30 older subjects (64 ± 4 yr old). Time-varying estimates of the autoregulation index [ARI(t)] were obtained with an autoregressive-moving average model with coefficients expanded by orthogonal decomposition. The temporal pattern of ARI(t) varied inversely with Pet(CO(2)), decreasing with hypercapnia. At rest, ARI(t) showed spontaneous fluctuations that were significantly different from noise and significantly correlated with spontaneous fluctuations in Pet(CO(2)) in the majority of recordings (young: 72% and old: 65%). No significant differences were found in ARI(t) due to aging. This new approach to improve the temporal resolution of dynamic CA parameters allows the identification of physiologically meaningful fluctuations in dynamic CA efficiency at rest and in response to changes in arterial CO(2).