Comprehensive Assessment of Interconnection Between Brain Emotional Activity and Coronary Plaque Instability

Overview

Emotional stress is associated with future cardiovascular events. However, the biological interconnection between brain emotional neural activity and acute plaque instability is not fully understood. Optical coherence tomography-Fluorescence Lifetime (OCT-FLIM) dual modal intravascular imaging is a novel technique that enables comprehensive assessment of structural and biochemical characteristics of coronary atheroma and estimates the level of plaque instability. 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG-PET/CT) enables simultaneous estimation of multi-system activities including emotional stress, arterial inflammation, and hematopoiesis. The present study aims to prospectively investigate mechanistic linkage between coronary plaque instability, stress-associated neurobiological activity, and macrophage hematopoiesis using OCT-FLIM and 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging assessment.

Thirty two patients with multivessel coronary artery disease (including both stable angina and acute coronary syndrome), who have at least one severe obstructive lesion (\>70% diameter stenosis) that is considered suitable for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), will be included in the study. Structural/biochemical characteristics of coronary culprit plaque (with or without mild to moderate stenotic non-culprit plaque) will be assessed comprehensively using OCT-FLIM dual modal intravascular imaging. After coronary revascularization with PCI, subjects will undergo serial 18F-FDG-PET/CT molecular imaging at baseline admission and 6-month follow-up to measure PET signal activities at target tissues including amygdala, carotid artery, aorta, bone marrow, and spleen. Correlation between OCT-FLIM parameters and baseline PET signals will be assessed to provide insight into the mechanistic linkage between multi-system metabolic activities and coronary plaque instability. Serial PET/CT imaging after 6 month will enable estimation of natural course of multi-system PET signal activities according to different levels of coronary plaque instability.

Conditions