ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Precapillary sphincters and pericytes at first-order capillaries as key regulators for brain capillary perfusion.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 73 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
73 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 109 citations in OpenAlex.
- KFrontiers in neurology · 2024Pooled it
- Computational Modeling of Collateral Circulation and Arteriolar Vasodilation in Ischemic Tissue Perfusion.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2026Article
- Review
- Protein kinase Cδ and pharmacomechanical coupling: Re-envisioning cerebral vascular control.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Molecular damage associated with ageing drives inflammation in cardiovascular disease.Nature reviews. Cardiology · 2026Review
- Blood flow patterns in mice are regulated by interpericyte tunneling nanotubes connecting functionally-opposite neuronal areas.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Systems biology analysis of vasodynamics in mouse cerebral arterioles during resting state and functional hyperemia.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- No-reflow phenomenon after vessel recanalization in acute ischemic stroke: mechanisms, diagnosis, and treatment directions.Journal of neurology · 2026Review
- Spatiotemporal dynamics of brain pericytes in ischemic stroke.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2026Review
- Non-invasive characterization of pericyte dysfunction in mouse brain using functional ultrasound localization microscopy.Nature biomedical engineering · 2026Article
- Neurovascular coupling and cerebrovascular reactivity: physiology, lifespan development, pathophysiology, and clinical relevance.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Review
- Article
- Article
- Eppur si muove: the dynamic brain pericyte.Fluids and barriers of the CNS · 2025Review
- Systemic nimodipine affects pericyte calcium signaling, resting hemodynamics and neurovascular coupling in healthy mouse brain.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2025Article
- Article
- Fluorescent sensors for intracellular signaling in the brain: imaging neurons, glia, and vascular cells.Neurophotonics · 2025Article
- Nitric oxide is not responsible for initial sensory-induced neurovascular coupling response in the barrel cortex of lightly anesthetized mice.Neurophotonics · 2025Article
- Pericyte Electrical Signalling and Brain Haemodynamics.Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology · 2025Review
- The microcirculation, the blood-brain barrier, and the neurovascular unit in health and Alzheimer disease: The aberrant pericyte is a central player.Pharmacological reviews · 2025Review
13 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Rises in local neural activity trigger local increases of cerebral blood flow, which is essential to match local energy demands. However, the specific location of microvascular flow control is incompletely understood. Here, we used two-photon microscopy to observe brain microvasculature in vivo. Small spatial movement of a three-dimensional (3D) vasculature makes it challenging to precisely measure vessel diameter at a single x-y plane. To overcome this problem, we carried out four-dimensional (x-y-z-t) imaging of brain microvessels during exposure to vasoactive molecules in order to constrain the impact of brain movements on the recordings. We demonstrate that rises in synaptic activity, acetylcholine, nitric oxide, cyclic guanosine monophosphate, ATP-sensitive potassium channels, and endothelin-1 exert far greater effects on brain precapillary sphincters and first-order capillaries than on penetrating arterioles or downstream capillaries, but with similar kinetics. The high level of responsiveness at precapillary sphincters and first-order capillaries was matched by a higher level of α-smooth muscle actin in pericytes as compared to penetrating arterioles and downstream capillaries. Mathematical modeling based on 3D vasculature reconstruction showed that precapillary sphincters predominantly regulate capillary blood flow and pressure as compared to penetrating arterioles and downstream capillaries. Our results confirm a key role for precapillary sphincters and pericytes on first-order capillaries as sensors and effectors of endothelium- or brain-derived vascular signals.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.