Background: Secondary prevention clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease (AD) target amyloid accumulation in asymptomatic, amyloid-positive individuals, but it is unclear to what extent other pathophysiological processes, such as small vessel cerebrovascular disease, account for participant performance on the primary cognitive outcomes in those trials. White matter hyperintensities are areas of increased signal on T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that reflect small vessel cerebrovascular disease. They are associated with cognitive functioning in older adults and with clinical presentation and course of AD, particularly when distributed in posterior brain regions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: Brain arterial diameters are markers of cerebrovascular disease. Demographic and anatomical factors may influence arterial diameters. We hypothesize that age, sex, height, total cranial volume (TCV), and persistent fetal posterior cerebral artery (fPCA) correlate with brain arterial diameters across populations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSocioeconomic status (SES) is associated with white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) and contributes to racial and ethnic health disparities. However, traditional measures of SES may not accurately represent individual financial circumstances among non-Latinx Black and Latinx older adults due to longstanding structural inequities. This study examined associations between multiple SES indicators (education, income, subjective financial worry) and WMHs across non-Latinx Black, Latinx, and non-Latinx White older adults in the Washington Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project (N = 662).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: High-grade carotid artery stenosis may alter hemodynamics in the ipsilateral hemisphere, but consequences of this effect are poorly understood. Cortical thinning is associated with cognitive impairment in dementia, head trauma, demyelination, and stroke. We hypothesized that hemodynamic impairment, as represented by a relative time-to-peak (TTP) delay on MRI in the hemisphere ipsilateral to the stenosis, would be associated with relative cortical thinning in that hemisphere.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Neuroimaging studies have documented racial and ethnic disparities in brain health in old age. It remains unclear whether these disparities are apparent in midlife.
Objective: To assess racial and ethnic disparities in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) markers of cerebrovascular disease and neurodegeneration in midlife and late life.