Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Cerebrovascular disease

Lobar cerebral microbleeds signal early cognitive impairment

  • News & Views
  • Published:

From Nature Reviews Neurology

View current issue Sign up to alerts

A cross-sectional community-based study shows that strictly lobar cerebral microbleeds are associated with cognitive impairment, and might be a surrogate marker for early small-vessel injury. The anatomical distribution of cerebral microbleeds suggests that cerebral amyloid angiopathy (with or without Alzheimer disease) might have a key role in early cognitive impairment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Figure 1: Anatomical location of cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) in cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) and arteriolosclerosis.

References

  1. Chung, C. P. et al. Strictly lobar cerebral microbleeds are associated with cognitive impairment. Stroke 47, 2497–2502 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Wardlaw, J. M. et al. Neuroimaging standards for research into small vessel disease and its contribution to ageing and neurodegeneration. Lancet Neurol. 12, 822–838 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Werring, D. J. et al. Cognitive dysfunction in patients with cerebral microbleeds on T2*-weighted gradient-echo MRI. Brain 127, 2265–2275 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Yakushiji, Y. et al. Brain microbleeds and global cognitive function in adults without neurological disorder. Stroke 39, 3323–3328 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Yakushiji, Y. et al. Distributional impact of brain microbleeds on global cognitive function in adults without neurological disorder. Stroke 43, 1800–1805 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Knudsen, K. A., Rosand, J., Karluk, D. & Greenberg, S. M. Clinical diagnosis of cerebral amyloid angiopathy: validation of the Boston criteria. Neurology 56, 537–539 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Kim, Y. J. et al. Synergistic effects of longitudinal amyloid and vascular changes on lobar microbleeds. Neurology 87, 1575–1582 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Cordonnier, C. & van der Flier, W. M. Brain microbleeds and Alzheimer's disease: innocent observation or key player? Brain 134, 335–344 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Akoudad, S. et al. Association of cerebral microbleeds with cognitive decline and dementia. JAMA Neurol. 73, 934–943 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Sevigny, J. et al. The antibody aducanumab reduces Aβ plaques in Alzheimer's disease. Nature 537, 50–56 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge funding support for work described in this article from a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Number 15k10364), and at UCLH/UCL, who received a proportion of funding from the Department of Health's NIHR Biomedical Research Centres funding scheme.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yusuke Yakushiji.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

Y.Y has received research support from Novartis Pharma. D.J.W. declares honoraria from Bayer, and was UK chief investigator for a randomized controlled trial of ponezumab in cerebral amyloid angiopathy, sponsored by Pfizer.

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yakushiji, Y., Werring, D. Lobar cerebral microbleeds signal early cognitive impairment. Nat Rev Neurol 12, 680–682 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2016.179

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2016.179

  • Springer Nature Limited

This article is cited by

Navigation