Project Overview

Every year more than 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke with currently around 4.7 million stroke survivors, and approximately 20% of the survivors go on to develop cognitive impairments and dementia later in life. This research project will seek an improved basic scientific understanding of the how the complex biological interactions between vascular and demographic risk factors (e.g., disadvantaged neighborhoods), baseline brain and cognitive health, and adaptive or maladaptive brain changes following an ischemic stroke, underlie the biology of vascular contributions to cognitive impairments and dementia (VCID). It will also seek development of diagnostic and prognostic tools based on non-invasive high-quality MRI biomarkers which may aid in positively altering disease progression and reducing the burden of illness on patients due to post ischemic stroke VCID.
Our central hypothesis is that VCID risk factors, baseline cognitive and brain health, incident stroke damage, and post stroke brain changes will act in concert through brain perfusion, structure, and connectivity pathways in determining whether a stroke patient develops VCID.
NIH funded project on investigating cogntive and brain changes after an ischemic stroke.