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Brain Blood Flow The protein cMAF helps immune cells near brain artery walls maintain vessel response to CO2 and cerebrospinal fluid movement. On August 14, authors described this mechanism, finding that perivascular macrophages depend on cMAF to function properly. When cMAF was removed in mice, cerebrospinal fluid movement and vessel response to excess CO2 were disrupted. Researchers had previously shown in 2022 that perivascular macrophages participate in cerebrospinal fluid movement, and now sought to understand the genetic program supporting these cells' function. Authors compared gene activity in different brain macrophages and identified cMAF. They then removed the Maf gene, which codes for cMAF, in mice, finding that macrophages around arteries lost a characteristic set of active genes, and fluorescent marker flow decreased along the middle cerebral artery. The authors investigated how this relates to vessel function, administering a mixture with 10% CO2 to mice. In control animals, arteries dilated and brain blood flow increased, but this response disappeared after cMAF removal. The protein IGF1 was found to be a key signal transmitted from macrophages to the vessel wall, with IGF1R as its receptor. In human brain data, MAF was found to be the most active regulator in perivascular macrophages, with its activity and IGF1 levels increasing with amyloid deposits in APOE3 variant carriers. A genetic variant near MAF was associated with higher MAF activity and lower Alzheimer's disease risk, as described in Nature Aging, July 2026. 🔗 Read original →