Cardiac and hemodynamic influence on carotid artery longitudinal wall motion

What is it about?

The ability of an artery to expand in response to pressure is well studied; however, it has been recently observed that the arterial wall also slides along the length of the vessel (longitudinally) both with and against blood flow. In order to study why carotid artery longitudinal wall motion (CALM) occurs, we tested whether short changes to left ventricular rotation and local blood flow would related to changes in CALM. We found that backwards motion of the vessel was moderately related to left ventricular rotation, and that early diastolic forwards motion of the vessel was moderately related to blood flow. These relationships were not as strong as originally hypothesized, suggesting that left ventricular rotation and blood flow may moderate CALM rather than directly control motion.

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Why is it important?

Even though the pulsatile nature of arteries is well described, it is surprising that the causes and consequences of longitudinal motion of arteries are virtually unknown. Our results are the first acute interventional studies in humans to probe the regulation of CALM, which is essential to understanding whether longitudinal displacement can be used to inform vascular disease risk, or contributes to arterial stiffening across the lifespan.