ArticleEuropean heart journal2019
Associations between vascular risk factors and brain MRI indices in UK Biobank.
Article in European heart journal, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 194 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
194 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Brain maps of general cognitive functioning: neuroimaging and neurobiological signatures.Translational psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Association Between Pulse Pressure and Structural Brain Changes in Aging: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2025Pooled it
- Investigating the shared genetic architecture between schizophrenia and body mass index.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Association between Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Brain Atrophy: A Meta-Analysis.Diabetes & metabolism journal · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Functional connectivity changes in cerebral small vessel disease - a systematic review of the resting-state MRI literature.BMC medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Cerebral small vessel disease genomics and its implications across the lifespan.Nature communications · 2020Pooled it
- Association between vascular risk factors and white matter integrity among diverse predominantly older Hispanic/Latino adults from the SOL-INCA MRI study.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Increased VWF-to-ADAMTS13 ratio is associated with large cerebral white matter hyperintensities.Blood vessels, thrombosis & hemostasis · 2026Article
- Association between cardiovascular disease risk factors and white matter lesions: The Tohoku Medical Megabank Cohort Study.Journal of atherosclerosis and thrombosis · 2026Article
- Central Obesity-related Brain Alterations Predict Cognitive Impairments in First Episode of Psychosis.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Observational
- Linking the exposome to the brain-behaviour phenotype.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Cardiac Rehabilitation and Cognitive Impairment: Elective Affinities or Fatal Attraction.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Aging and metabolism contribute separately to brain-body health.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Region-specific vulnerability to vascular risk factors and modifiable protective influences on white matter hyperintensities.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Dementia Risk in the Decade Before and After Coronary Heart Disease Diagnosis: Hybrid Case-Control and Cohort Study.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2026Article
- Exposome-wide patterns predict brain health in aging.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Ischemic Stroke Incidence and Severity and Poststroke Cognitive Decline and Incident Dementia.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- The role of age in the relationship between brain structure and cognition: moderator or confound?Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Stage-Dependent mediation of white matter hyperintensities between plasma biomarkers and cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
134 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
24 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimsSeveral factors are known to increase risk for cerebrovascular disease and dementia, but there is limited evidence on associations between multiple vascular risk factors (VRFs) and detailed aspects of brain macrostructure and microstructure in large community-dwelling populations across middle and older age. METHODS AND
resultsAssociations between VRFs (smoking, hypertension, pulse pressure, diabetes, hypercholesterolaemia, body mass index, and waist-hip ratio) and brain structural and diffusion MRI markers were examined in UK Biobank (N = 9722, age range 44-79 years). A larger number of VRFs was associated with greater brain atrophy, lower grey matter volume, and poorer white matter health. Effect sizes were small (brain structural R2 ≤1.8%). Higher aggregate vascular risk was related to multiple regional MRI hallmarks associated with dementia risk: lower frontal and temporal cortical volumes, lower subcortical volumes, higher white matter hyperintensity volumes, and poorer white matter microstructure in association and thalamic pathways. Smoking pack years, hypertension and diabetes showed the most consistent associations across all brain measures. Hypercholesterolaemia was not uniquely associated with any MRI marker.
conclusionHigher levels of VRFs were associated with poorer brain health across grey and white matter macrostructure and microstructure. Effects are mainly additive, converging upon frontal and temporal cortex, subcortical structures, and specific classes of white matter fibres. Though effect sizes were small, these results emphasize the vulnerability of brain health to vascular factors even in relatively healthy middle and older age, and the potential to partly ameliorate cognitive decline by addressing these malleable risk factors.
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