Qi Xie¹*, Ya-jie Wang^1,2, Xiao-fang Tu³, Peng-Peng Han³ and Jun Wu³

¹Medical Imaging Department of Nansha, Guangzhou First People's Hospital,
School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong,
511457, China
²Department of Radiology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu,
Sichuan, 610041, China
³Guangzhou Institute of Software, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 511458, China

*Corresponding Author: Qi Xie, Medical Imaging Department of Nansha, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 511457, China.

Received: March 18, 2026; Published: May 05, 2026

Abstract

Aim: The vein serves as the downstream outflow channel of the artery and is also a component of the perivascular space (PVS) around the vein of the glymphatic system (GS). The acute effect of tea on superficial cerebral veins (SCVs) in the human cerebral cortex was evaluated with susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) in vivo to explore the possible mechanism of tea neuroprotection.

Methods: 35 participants aged 22-71 with normal cognition were prospective recruited. About one hour after drinking purified water, Pu-erh tea, oolong tea and green tea separately, Magnetic Resonance (MR)-SWI data of the subject's brain were collected and imported into a deep learning algorithm model based on SWI. SCVs in cerebral hemispheres were automatically recognized and the quantitative data were collected for statistical analysis.

Results: All subjects exhibited no adverse reactions following tea consumption. Compared with drinking purified water, after drinking Pu-erh tea, or oolong tea, or green tea, the subjects' SCVs were significantly dilated with a significant increase in the number of visible SCVs (p = 0.000~0.026, t = -5.871~-2.385, df = 16-24, t test). Whether drinking tea or not, males had significantly more visible SCVs than females (p = 0.001-0.007, nonnormal distribution, Mann‒Whitney U test). People who eat fish regularly, after drinking oolong tea, showed significantly more SCVs in the left cerebral hemisphere compared to those who did not eat fish (p = 0.011, Kruskal‒Wallis test). Regular moderate drinkers, after drinking oolong tea, showed significantly more SCVs in the right cerebral hemisphere compared to non-drinkers (p = 0.015, Kruskal‒Wallis test). might serve as an effective method

Conclusions: Drinking tea might increase volume flow of SCVs in the cortex, indicating that the active substances in tea might increase the reflux of SCVs. Tea consumption might serve as an effective method to clean the microcirculation system of the human brain. The effects of tea intake might be relevant to mechanisms of CNS protection.

Keywords: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI); Susceptibility-weighted Imaging (SWI); Tea; Superficial Cerebral Veins (SCVs); Image Segmentation Algorithm; Neuroprotection

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Citation

Citation: Qi Xi. “Quantification of Superficial Cerebral Veins with AI After Tea via Susceptibility-Weighted Imaging and Exploration of Possible Neuroprotective Mechanisms from Tea". Acta Scientific Neurology 9.5 (2026): 24-37.

Copyright

Copyright: ©2026 Qi Xi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.