Mary Sweeney

APOE4 leads to blood–brain barrier dysfunction predicting cognitive decline

Nature · 2020 · 1238 citations

Perivascular spaces in the brain: anatomy, physiology and pathology

Nature Reviews Neurology · 2020 · 848 citations

Preventing dementia by preventing stroke: The Berlin Manifesto

Alzheimer s & Dementia · 2019-07-01 · 327 citations

The incidence of stroke and dementia are diverging across the world, rising for those in low- and middle-income countries and falling in those in high-income countries. This suggests that whatever factors cause these trends are potentially modifiable. At the population level, neurological disorders as a group account for the largest proportion of disability-adjusted life years globally (10%). Among neurological disorders, stroke (42%) and dementia (10%) dominate. Stroke and dementia confer risks…

Associations between Vascular Function and Tau PET Are Associated with Global Cognition and Amyloid

Journal of Neuroscience · 2020 · 89 citations

evidence of associations between cerebral blood flow (CBF), an MRI measure of vascular health, and tau pathology using PET. CBF-tau associations were related to cognition and driven in part by amyloid burden. Soluble platelet-derived growth factor β, an independent CSF vascular biomarker, confirmed vascular-tau associations in a subgroup analysis. These results suggest that combination treatments targeting vascular health, amyloid-β, and tau levels may more effectively preserve cognitive functio…

Acute Ablation of Cortical Pericytes Leads to Rapid Neurovascular Uncoupling

Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience · 2020-02-14 · 75 citations

Pericytes are perivascular mural cells that enwrap brain capillaries and maintain blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity. Most studies suggest that pericytes regulate cerebral blood flow (CBF) and oxygen delivery to activated brain structures, known as neurovascular coupling. While we have previously shown that congenital loss of pericytes leads over time to aberrant hemodynamic responses, the effects of acute global pericyte loss on neurovascular coupling have not been studied. To address this, we…