Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

While it is commonly known that arteries expand radially in response to increases in pressure, it has only recently been discovered that the arterial wall also moves in the longitudinal direction along the length of an artery segment. Preliminary studies have shown that measuring carotid artery longitudinal wall motion (CALM) might provide additional health information for a wide range of individuals; however, there is debate over which outcomes best represent vascular structure and function. In our study, we investigated whether CALM outcomes in the diastolic period, rather than the systolic period, were better able to distinguish between younger adults (n=161), older adults (n=51), and adults with coronary artery disease (n=14). We found that diastolic CALM was reduced with age, but was further reduced with CAD status, possibly indicating greater sensitivity to age and health. There was also a moderate relationship between diastolic CALM and age, independent of arterial stiffness. Contrary to previously published CALM parameters, diastolic CALM may provide superior promise in characterizing arterial wall properties uniquely independent of arterial stiffness. In the future, we hope to study the relationship between diastolic CALM and cardiovascular disease events in order to improve predictive models of cardiovascular disease risk.