Cerebrovascular disorders articles from across Nature Portfolio

Vascular cognitive impairment and dementia is the second most common cause of dementia after Alzheimer disease. In this Review, the authors examine the potential of key molecules in the pathophysiology as biomarkers of vascular cognitive impairment and dementia and consider the challenges of clinical translation.

Here the authors establish somatic loss-of-heterozygosity as a genetic underpinning of Cerebral Cavernous Malformations (CCMs): using single-nucleus DNA sequencing, they show homozygosity of chromosomes 7p and/or 7q leads to biallelic inactivation of CCM genes in resected lesions.

A new study indicates that although men and women are equally likely to experience cognitive impairment after acute ischaemic stroke, there are sex differences in particular cognitive domains. Whether these differences are directly linked to biological sex is uncertain, as many factors, including age and pre-stroke factors, could contribute to cognitive outcomes.

Aging is a major risk factor for vascular disease. Increased levels of milk fat globule-EGF factor 8 (MFG-E8) are associated with many age-related arterial changes, but the mechanisms remain unclear. We propose that these detrimental effects may result from medin, a fragment of MFG-E8 that forms a highly common vascular amyloid.

A new study examining trends in postmortem neuropathology results over the past 25 years provides important insights into secular trends in dementia risk. The results suggest that improvements in both cardiovascular health and cognitive reserve underlie the reduced risk.

A large meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (N >40,000) on perivascular space (PVS) burden, an emerging brain imaging marker of cerebral small vessel disease, has revealed 24 genetic risk loci for extensive PVS burden. These findings provide novel insights into the biology and clinical significance of this trait.