Original title: Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk is associated with AT(N)V neuroimaging biomarkers and cognitive impairment in the health and aging brain study–health disparities cohort
Researchers studied adults without cardiovascular disease or dementia and estimated each person’s chance of atherosclerotic heart disease over ten years. They compared that estimate with brain scans for Alzheimer’s-related changes, brain shrinkage, and blood-vessel damage, as well as tests of memory and other thinking skills. Higher heart risk went along with more signs of brain injury and lower scores in all four thinking areas. Because the study took measurements at one point in time, it cannot show which changes came first or whether one caused another.
Imagine checking a family’s grocery bags and energy levels on the same evening. A heavier bag may show up alongside greater tiredness, but that snapshot cannot tell you which came first or whether one caused the other. In this paper, the grocery bags stand for heart-disease risk, and the energy levels stand for brain scans and thinking-test scores; the researchers find that higher risk goes with poorer brain measures, but the snapshot cannot show cause and effect.
Heart and brain health may be linked even in people without diagnosed cardiovascular disease or dementia. For clinicians and researchers, the findings suggest that a standard estimate of future heart risk may also mark brain changes and thinking difficulties—but they do not show that heart risk causes them.
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot establish whether cardiovascular risk causes brain changes or cognitive difficulties, or determine their temporal direction. Its findings come from HABS-HD participants without cardiovascular disease or dementia, so the abstract does not establish whether the same associations apply to other groups.
Ask anything about this paper. Answers come from its abstract, and say so when the abstract doesn't cover your question.
Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk is associated with AT(N)V neuroimaging biomarkers and cognitive impairment in the health and aging brain study–health disparities cohort — Kimberly Espejo, Ryan Rulkens, Cellas A. Hayes et al. — Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience — doi:10.3389/fnagi.2026.1874472
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.