Mechanisms underlying sporadic cerebral small vessel disease: insights from neuroimaging

By Joanna M. Wardlaw, Colin Smith, Martin Dichgans. Lancet Neurology, 2013

1,461 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The term “cerebral small vessel disease” (SVD) describes a range of neuroimaging, pathological and associated clinical features. The latter range from none, to discrete focal neurological symptoms (stroke), to insidious global neurological dysfunction and dementia. The public health burden is considerable. The pathogenesis is largely unknown. Although associated with vascular risk factors, and generally considered to result from an intrinsic cerebral arteriolar occlusive disease, the pathological processes leading to the arteriolar disease, how these result in brain disease, how SVD lesions contribute to neurological or cognitive symptoms and the relationship to risk factors, have been the subject of much speculation. Pathology often reflects end-stage disease making determination of the earliest stages difficult. Neuroimaging provides considerable insights: the small vessels are not easily seen themselves, but the effects of their malfunction on the brain can be tracked on detailed brain imaging. We review the growing evidence for the most likely mechanisms.

Subfields: Epidemiology, Neurology, Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/595b2f15776e3852b8e55eae9dcb9f8182907e07

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Citations in the corpus

Clinical Significance of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Markers of Vascular Brain Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (2019, positive): “Four radiological features of VBI are seen on routineMRI scans (Figure 1).(5) Magnetic resonance imaging–defined covert brain infarcts (BIs) represent areas of infarction, most commonly small and in subcortical regions, and are usually asymptomatic.”
Stroke subtype, vascular risk factors, and total MRI brain small-vessel disease burden (2014, background): “3- but ,20-mm diameter, in the basal ganglia, internal capsule, centrum semiovale, or brainstem and carefully distinguished from WMH.(1) Cortical infarcts were defined as infarcts involving cortical 6 adjacent subcortical tissue, or large (.”
Vascular dysfunction – the disregarded partner of Alzheimer’s disease (2019, positive): “We recommend the following extensions of the Research Framework: (1) Incorporate biomarkers of vascular dysfunction to assess vascular contributions to AD using imaging biomarkers such as FLAIR, diffusion tensor imaging, T2*weighted sequences, DCE, ASL, and DSC MRI sequences, TCD, BOLD-fMRI, and TOF”
Rationale, design and methodology of the image analysis protocol for studies of patients with cerebral small vessel disease and mild stroke (2015, methodology): “These features are part of the same diffuse small vessel disease (SVD) spectrum (Wardlaw et al. 2013a,b).”
The pathobiology of vascular dementia (2013, positive): “Accordingly, scavenging of free radicals or approaches to suppress inflammation counteract white matter damage and behavioral deficits in rodent models of cerebral hypoperfusion (Dong et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2008a; Maki et al., 2011; Ueno et al., 2009; Wakita et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2010; Washi”