Cerebrovascular disease and dementia: exploring causal pathways

Cerebrovascular disease is increasingly recognized as playing a major role in the pathophysiology of dementia. We aimed to (i) explore the relation of genetically determined white matter hyperintensity burden (WMH) – a common MRI‐marker of covert cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) – with risk of dementia and Alzheimer disease (AD); (ii) compare it with the relation of dementia/AD and genetically determined blood pressure (BP) and stroke, respectively a major risk factor and complication of WMH.