Vascular dementia: atherosclerosis, cognition and Alzheimer's disease.

Both Alzheimer's disease type pathology (neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles) and evidence of atherosclerosis and infarcts are common in autopsy specimens from the brains of patients enrolled in longitudinal prospective cohorts; the relative contribution of each of these to overall cognitive function is unclear. In addition whether each of these two forms of brain pathology can accelerate the appearance of the other is also unclear. In this paper we examine the relationship among Alzheimer's brain pathology, cerebral infarcts and cerebral atherosclerosis. We conclude that each is an independent predictor of dementia. Moreover we do not find that atherosclerosis increases Alzheimer's type brain pathology or vice versa.