Four pathologies of SVD associate with dementia: white matter hyperintensities, cerebral microbleeds, lacunar infarcts, enlarged perivascular spaces
The four pathologies that were detectable by MRI included:
- moderate-to-severe white matter hyperintensities - blood pressure is a risk factor for this one
- deep cerebral microbleeds
- lacunar infarcts
- enlarged perivascular space.
From the article:
The subjects were given cognitive tests and brain MRIs. The MRIs were examined for four main components of small vessel disease (SVD). These four components, which include evidence of microbleeds and minor strokes, then were added to create a total SVD score. The score ranges from zero points (no SVD) to 4 points (severe SVD).
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The study found that that 61 percent of the subjects had zero points on the total SVD score, 20 percent had 1 point, 12 percent had 2 points, 5 percent had 3 points and 2 percent had 4 points. The higher the SVD score, the greater the cognitive decline. Researchers also found that each individual component of SVD predicted cognitive decline as well as the total SVD score did.