Cerebral Small Vessel Disease in Population-Based Research: What are We Looking at-and What not?

Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) is considered as one of the main causes of cognitive decline and dementia. However, despite extensive research, the pathogenesis of CSVD and the mechanisms through which CSVD leads to its clinical manifestations remain largely unclear. The challenging in vivo quantification of CSVD hampers progress in further unraveling the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of CSVD. Currently, markers of CSVD are mainly brain abnormalities attributed to CSVD, but these are limited in reflecting morphological and functional changes of the microvasculature. We describe aspects of CSVD that are reflected by currently used techniques and those that are still insufficiently captured.

Automated summary

Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) is a major cause of cognitive decline and dementia, but the pathogenesis and mechanisms are still unclear. The current challenge lies in the difficulty of accurately quantifying CSVD, which hampers the understanding of its pathogenesis and pathophysiology. The markers currently used for CSVD mainly reflect brain abnormalities, but fail to capture morphological and functional changes of the microvasculature.