ABSTRACT
Cerebrovascular disease takes many forms, and it adversely affects neuropsychological functioning in many ways. We are all familiar with the concept of stroke, which results from an occlusion of a large blood vessel in the brain, usually an artery. In fact, much of what is known about brain-behavior relationships has evolved from they study of stroke patients and observations of the patterns of behavioral changes associated with different focal lesions. Other forms of cerebrovascular disease produce more widespread pathology, however, and can produce global deWcits in cognitive functioning. In this chapter we review the association between cerebrovascular disease and dementia, with a particular emphasis on the dementia caused by ischemia in small blood vessels in subcortical brain regions.
