Table 1.

Contrast the pathological processes between inflammatory demyelinating white matter disease

	Vascular demyelinating WMD	Inflammatory demyelinating WMD
Causes	Ischaemic or haemorrhagic stroke	MS, NMOSD
	CSVD including hypertension, diabetes mellitus, migraine, CAA, CADASIL, Susac syndrome and others	Vasculopathy, including SLE, sarcoidosis, Behcet disease, Sjögren syndrome
Pathological process	Various aetiologies affecting the small arteries, arterioles, venules and capillaries of the brain, leading to endothelial dysfunction, BBB damage and secondary destruction of normal myelin	BBB damage and robust inflammatory infiltration combined with demyelination, leading to secondary destruction of normal myelin

BBB, blood-brain barrier; CAA, cerebral amyloid angiopathy; CADASIL, cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy; CSVD, cerebral small vessel disease; MS, multiple sclerosis; NMOSD, neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders; SLE, systemic lupus erythematosus.