Arterial tree asymmetry reduces cerebral pulsatility

Abstract With each heartbeat, pressure wave (PW) propagates from aorta toward periphery. In cerebral circulation, at the level of circle of Willis (CW), four arteries and four PWs converge. Since the interference is an elemental property of the wave, PWs interfere at the level of CW. We hypothesize that the asymmetry of brain-supplying arteries (that join to form CW) creates phase difference between the four PWs that interfere at the level of CW and reduce downstream cerebral pulsatility. To best of our knowledge, the data about the sequence of PWs’ arrival into the cerebral circulation is lacking. Evident imperfect bilateral symmetry of the vessels results with different path length of brain-supplying arteries, hence, PWs should arrive into the head at different times. The probabilistic calculation shows that asynchronous arrival is more probable than synchronous. The importance of PWs for the cerebral circulation is highlighted by the observation that barotrauma protection mechanisms are more influenced by the crest of PW (pulse pressure) than by the mean arterial pressure. In addition, an increased arterial pulsatility is associated with several brain pathologies. We created simple computational models of four converging arteries and found that asynchronous arrival of the PWs results with lower maximum pressure, slower rate of pressure amplification and lower downstream pulsatility. In analogy, the asynchronous arrival of the pressure waves into the cerebral circulation should decrease blood flow pulsatility and lower transmission of kinetic energy on arterial wall. We conclude that asynchronous arrival of PWs into the cerebral circulation influences cerebral hemodynamics and represents a physiological necessity.