Sex differences in the structure and function of rat middle cerebral arteries
Shaoxun Wang, Huawei Zhang, Yedan Liu, Longyang Li, Ya Guo, Feng Jiao, Xing Fang, Joshua R. Jefferson, Man Li, Wen‐Jun Gao, Ezekiel Gonzalez‐Fernandez, Rodrigo O. Marañón, Mallikarjuna R. Pabbidi, Ruen Liu, Barbara T. Alexander, Richard J. Roman, Fan Fan
Abstract
Using perfusion fixation of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) in calcium-free solution at physiological pressure and systematically randomly sampling the sections prepared from the same M2 segments of MCA, we found that there are structural differences that are associated with altered cerebral blood flow (CBF) autoregulation but not neurovascular coupling and cognition in young, healthy Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Understanding the intrinsic differences in cerebrovascular structure and function in males and females is essential to develop new pharmaceutical treatments for cerebrovascular disease (CVD).