Cerebral Small Vessel Disease and Cognitive Impairment in Aging Brain

Dear Colleagues,

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is considered a major cause and contributor to cognitive decline and dementia. SVD represents a wide range of pathological processes affecting arteries, arterioles, venules, and capillaries, resulting in ischemic, hemorrhagic, and inflammatory damage. The magnetic resonance imaging markers of SVD include white matter hyperintensities, lacunes, cerebral microbleeds, cerebral microinfarcts, and enlarged perivascular spaces. SVD is reported to be one of the leading causes of cognitive impairment, dementia, stroke, and physical disability. SVD is a potentially treatable condition by targeting vascular risk factors. Investigating and addressing the impact of SVD on cognition as well as its interactive effects on neurodegeneration is paramount to understanding how to mitigate the effects of vascular disease on the aging brain (molecular to behavioral mechanisms).

This Special Issue invites articles from both basic sciences to applied scientific approaches that aim to fill this gap by elucidating the role of SVD as the missing link in the interactive effects of vascular and neurodegenerative pathologies in the brain. These contributions will provide crucial insights to the scientific community in order to develop preventive and therapeutic interventions which are pertinent for prioritizing public health efforts to tackle this devastating illness.

Prof. Saima Hilal
Guest Editor

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• Cerebral small vessel disease
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Cognitive impairment
• Neuroimaging
• Vascular biomarkers