Hierarchical Assessment of Vascular Alterations in a Mouse Model for Alzheimer´s Disease

Recently neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer´s disease (AD) and senile dementia have been associated with vascular alterations. We are using modified vascular corrosion casting combined with micro-computed tomography to evaluate the vascular pattern in normal and pathological tissue from APP23 transgenic animals. Our newly developed hierarchical imaging framework allows for non-destructive top-down scanning of large vascular networks, resolving even smallest vessels in selected physiological regions such as cortex and hippocampus. Global morphometry may be used to evaluate the high-resolution 3D data. It is however limited in its capability to assess localized features such as microvascular infarcts. We therefore present advanced morphometry based on histogram analysis and give an outlook on novel evaluation possibilities that arise from the hierarchical imaging method. Because this approach opens new possibilities in assessing microvascular features in models of disease, it might be influential for drug discovery and drug monitoring