Arterial Calcification of the Circle of Willis is Correlated With Age, Sex, and Vessel Size, but Not Coronary Artery Disease as a Cause of Death

Cardiovascular disease is known to be a factor in the development of neurodegenerative diseases because of the simple fact that arteries supplying blood to the brain might be affected. However, a thorough investigation of the distribution of arteriosclerosis, particularly in the form of arterial calcification, remains lacking. Here we report a histopathological study of the left and right sides of eight vessels that contribute to the Circle of Willis for 10 individual whole body donors. Increased calcium was not found to be correlated with the incidence of cardiovascular disease being listed as a cause of death on their death certificate, yet increased calcium levels were consistently found among the males in the study, with females exhibiting much more variation. The greatest significance was found between vessels of different size categories, with larger vessels exhibiting greater calcification % scores. Though this leaves smaller vessels uninvestigated, these results suggest that arterial calcification is a greater problem for larger vessels of the Circle of Willis.