Table 1.

Selected causes of cognitive impairment related to vascular factors

Condition	Predominant association/cause	Target vessel and vascular pathology	Resulting brain lesions	Refs.
Hypoperfusion dementia	Cardiac arrest/failure Hypotension Carotid occlusion	Large vessel ATS Vascular stiffening	“Watershed” infarcts Cortical laminar necrosis Incomplete white matter infarcts	(Jellinger, 2013; Johnston et al., 2004; Marshall et al., 2012)
“Strategic infarct” dementia	Arterial occlusion	Large-medium size arteries	Infarct in regions involved in cognition, e.g., frontal lobe, thalamus, etc.	(Jellinger, 2013)
Multiinfarct dementia	Multiple arterial occlusions (embolic thrombotic)	Large-medium size arteries and arterioles	Multiple large infarcts Lacunar infarcts Microinfarcts	(Thal et al., 2012)
White matter lesions (Leukoaraiosis) and lacunes	Vascular risk factors CADASIL and other genetic causes	Arterioles (<300μm Ø) Small vessel ATS Arteriolosclerosis Lipohyalinosis Venous collagenosis	Axonal damage Demyelination Lacunar infarcts Microinfarcts Microbleeds	(Black et al., 2009; Brown and Thore, 2011; Thal et al., 2012)
Microinfarcts	CADASIL CAA, AD Vascular risk factors	Arterioles (<300μm Ø) Small vessel ATS Arteriolosclerosis	Infarcts not visible by naked eye	(Smith et al., 2012)
Microbleeds and hemorrhages	CAA, AD CADASIL Vascular risk factors	Arterioles (<300μm Ø) Vascular rupture	Small hemorrhage in perivascular space Lobar or basal ganglia hemorrhage	(Charidimou and Werring, 2012; Henskens et al., 2008)
CADASIL	Notch 3 mutations	Arterioles (<300μm Ø) Thickened wall Smooth muscle cell GOM pericyte loss	White matter lesions Lacunar infarcts Microinfarcts Microbleeds Brain atrophy	(Chabriat et al., 2009; Federico et al., 2012; Schmidt et al., 2012)
Cerebral amyloid angiopathy	Hereditary Sporadic AD	Amyloid deposits in arteries (<2mm Ø), arterioles, capillaries Smooth muscle degeneration Vascular rupture	Hemorrhage White matter lesions Microinfarcts Microbleeds	(Attems et al., 2011; Charidimou and Werring, 2012)
Post-stroke dementia	Ischemic stroke of any cause	Large-medium size arteries perivascular immune cells (?)	Silent infarcts White matter lesions Lacunar infarcts Neuronal loss Brain atrophy	(Leys et al., 2005) (Iadecola and Anrather, 2011)
Mixed AD vascular dementia	Sporadic Vascular risk factors	Large-medium size arteries and arterioles	AD pathology White matter lesions Lacunar infarcts Microinfarcts Microbleeds	(Jellinger, 2013; Thal et al., 2012)

Large infarct: >1cm Ø; Lacunar infarct: 5–15 mm Ø; microinfarct: <1mm Ø; microbleeds: <5mm Ø; ATS: atherosclerosis; GOM: graular osmophilic material; Vascular risk factors: hypertension, diabetes, smoking, etc.