Pial arteries bend with every heartbeat

Abstract

Arterial pulsations are thought to drive perivascular transport by displacing vessel walls radially. In 11 awake mice, all pial arteries also bend with each heartbeat, displacing the wall by three times the pulse-related dilatation per wall, while veins barely move. The bend has a spatial period of about 20 diameters, arrives with the dilatation, at above 1.6 m/s, and dissipates 450 times less energy in the wall.