Cerebral Blood Flow Velocity Progressively Decreases with Increasing Levels of Verticalization in Healthy Adults. A Cross-sectional Study with an Observational Design

Background: Autoregulation of the cerebral vasculature keeps brain perfusion stable over a range of systemic mean arterial pressures to ensure brain functioning, e.g., in different body positions. Verticalization, i.e., transfer from lying (0°) to upright (70°), which causes systemic blood pressure drop, would otherwise dramatically lower cerebral perfusion pressure inducing fainting. Understanding cerebral autoregulation is therefore a prerequisite to safe mobilization of patients in therapy.

Aim: We measured the impact of verticalization on cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) and systemic blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) and oxygen saturation in healthy individuals.

Methods: We measured CBFV in the middle cerebral artery (MCA) of the dominant hemisphere in 20 subjects using continuous transcranial doppler ultrasound (TCD). Subjects were verticalized at 0°, -5°, 15°, 30°, 45° and 70° for 3-5 min each, using a standardized Sara Combilizer chair. In addition, blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen saturation were continuously monitored.

Results: We show that CBFV progressively decreases in the MCA with increasing degrees of verticalization. Systolic and diastolic BP, as well as HR, show a compensatory increase during verticalization.

Conclusion: In healthy adults CBFV changes rapidly with changing levels of verticalization. The changes in the circulatory parameters are similar to results regarding classic orthostasis.

Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT04573114.