Recent reports suggest declines in the age-specific risk of Alzheimer’s dementia in higher income Western countries. At the same time, investigators believe that worldwide trends of increasing mid-life modifiable risk factors [e.g., cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors] coupled with the growth of the world's oldest age groups may nonetheless lead to an increase in Alzheimer’s dementia. Thus, understanding the overlap in neuroanatomical profiles associated with CVD risk factors and AD may offer more relevant targets for investigating ways to reduce the growing dementia epidemic than current targets specific to isolated AD-related neuropathology. We hypothesized that a core group of common brain structural alterations exist between CVD risk factors and Alzheimer’s dementia. Two co-authors conducted independent literature reviews in PubMed using search terms for CVD risk factor burden (separate searches for ‘cardiovascular disease risk factors’, ‘hypertension’, and ‘Type 2 diabetes’) and ‘aging’ or ‘Alzheimer’s dementia’ with either ‘grey matter volumes’ or ‘white matter’. Of studies that reported regionally localized results, we found support for our hypothesis, determining 23 regions commonly associated with both CVD risk factors and Alzheimer’s dementia. Within this context, we outline future directions for research as well as larger cerebrovascular implications for these commonalities. Overall, this review supports previous as well as more recent calls for the consideration that both vascular and neurodegenerative factors contribute to the pathogenesis of dementia.

最近的报告表明，在较高收入的西方国家，阿尔茨海默氏痴呆症的特定年龄风险有所下降。与此同时，研究人员认为，世界范围内中年可改变风险因素 [例如，心血管疾病 (CVD) 风险因素] 增加的趋势，加上世界上最老年龄组的增长，可能仍然会导致阿尔茨海默氏痴呆症的增加。因此，了解与 CVD 风险因素和 AD 相关的神经解剖学特征的重叠，可能会为研究减少日益严重的痴呆流行病的方法提供更多相关目标，而不是目前针对孤立的 AD 相关神经病理学的特定目标。我们假设在 CVD 风险因素和阿尔茨海默氏痴呆之间存在一组核心的常见大脑结构改变。两位合著者在 PubMed 中使用 CVD 风险因素负担的搜索词（分别搜索“心血管疾病风险因素”、“高血压”和“2 型糖尿病”）和“衰老”或“阿尔茨海默氏痴呆”与“灰质体积”或“白质”。在报告区域化结果的研究中，我们发现了对我们假设的支持，确定了 23 个通常与 CVD 风险因素和阿尔茨海默氏痴呆相关的区域。在此背景下，我们概述了未来的研究方向以及这些共性对脑血管的更大影响。总的来说，这篇综述支持以前和最近的呼吁，即考虑血管和神经退行性因素都有助于痴呆症的发病机制。