Neurovascular Coupling

Citation Info

BN Pasley and RD Freeman (2008)
Neurovascular Coupling.
Scholarpedia. 3(3): 5340. 2008

 

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Abstract

Neurovascular coupling refers to the relationship between local neural activity and subsequent changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF). The magnitude and spatial location of blood flow changes are tightly linked to changes in neural activity through a complex sequence of coordinated events involving neurons, glia, and vascular cells. Many vascular-based functional brain imaging techniques, such as fMRI, rely on this coupling to infer changes in neural activity.