# Cardiovascular predictors of cerebrovascular health in older adults

> **NIH NIH R01** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · $631,989

## Abstract

As the population continues to age, cognitive decline and dementia are becoming increasingly important public
health issues. While Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, cerebrovascular pathology
contributes to at least one third of all pathologically-confirmed cases of dementia and mixed pathology
accounts for at least half of all clinical dementia cases. Cerebrovascular injury is in part driven by vascular risk
factors, which also contribute to cardiovascular injury and disease. Alterations in cardiovascular function may
pose a risk for accelerating age-related brain injury, independent of shared vascular risk factors. Our
preliminary research suggests that subclinical cardiac dysfunction is related to maladaptive brain aging, such
as cognitive impairment and incident dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. Despite extensive evidence that
cardiovascular changes correspond to worse cognitive outcomes, the exact mechanism of injury linking
subclinical cardiovascular changes to brain changes remains unclear. One plausible mechanism is subclinical
small vessel disease. We propose to leverage legacy data from an existing cohort, the Vanderbilt Memory &
Aging project, to evaluate systemic blood flow, cardiac contractility, and arterial stiffening in relation to cognitive
progression and neuroimaging markers of small vessel disease. Since the Vanderbilt Memory & Aging Project
cohort's inception in 2012, we have completed serial (baseline, 18-month follow-up, 36-month follow-up) visits
with key covariate ascertainment, neuropsychological assessment, multi-modal brain MRI, cardiac MRI, and
fasting blood acquisition on older adults free of clinical stroke and dementia at enrollment. For this award, we
will post-process and code new variables from raw data unrelated to previous grant aims to test our
hypotheses. Results from this interdisciplinary effort will yield important insights into mechanisms underlying
the association between cardiovascular function and brain changes in older adults. Such insights will provide
rich information regarding subclinical factors predisposing to cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and
dementia, which will contribute to future novel strategies to delay or prevent cognitive impairment and
progression.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9961694
- **Project number:** 5R01NS100980-04
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** ANGELA L. JEFFERSON
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $631,989
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-01 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9961694

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9961694, Cardiovascular predictors of cerebrovascular health in older adults (5R01NS100980-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9961694. Licensed CC0.

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