International Journal of Cerebrovascular Diseases 2017;25(3):244-250

doi:10.3760/cma.j.issn.1673-4165.2017.03.010

Cerebral small vessel disease and vascular cognitive impairment: focus on neuroimaging

Yucheng GU ; Yun XU

Keywords

Cerebral Small Vessel Diseases; Cognition Disorders; Neuroimaging

Country

China

Language

Chinese

Abstract

Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) is an important cause of functional incapacitation,disability,and cognitive impairment in the elderly.Subcortical CSVD can lead to lacunar infarcts and progressive white matter lesions.CSVD cognitive impairment is an important subtype of vascular cognitive impairment (VCI).The dementia caused by it accounts for about 36%-67% of vascular dementia.With the development of technology,neuroimaging and its related markers has become a powerful tool for the diagnosis of CSVD and cognitive impairment.The clues of the CSVD pathogenesis can also be found in the field of brain cognition.STandards for ReportIng Vascular changes on nEuroimaging (STRIVE) has established the neuroimaging markers of 6 critical damages,including recent small subcortical infarcts,lacunar foci that are assumed to be the origin of blood vessels,white matter hyperintensities that are assumed to be the origin of blood vessels,perivascular spaces,cerebral microbleeds,and brain atrophy.This article reviews the correlation between VCI caused by CSVD and imaging features.