A Window into the Brain: Multimodal MRI Assessment of Vascular

Ma, Changjun; Liu, Ai Lian; Liu, Jiahui; Wang, Xiulin; Cong, Fengyu; Li, Ying; Liu, Jing

doi:10.3389/fnins.2025.1526897

REVIEW article

Front. Neurosci.

Sec. Brain Imaging Methods

Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1526897

A Window into the Brain: Multimodal MRI Assessment of Vascular

Provisionally accepted

Changjun Ma ^1,2,3

Jing Liu ^2,3*

¹ Faculty of Medicine, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
² Stem Cell Clinical Research Center, National Joint Engineering Laboratory, Regenerative Medicine, First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China
³ Dalian Innovation Institute of Stem Cell and Precision Medicine, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
⁴ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
⁵ Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Central Finland, Finland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) encompasses a diverse range of syndromes, including mild cognitive impairment and vascular dementia (VaD), primarily attributed to cerebrovascular lesions and vascular risk factors. Its prevalence ranks second only to Alzheimer's disease (AD) in neuro diseases. The advancement of medical imaging technology, particularly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), has enabled the early detection of structural, functional, metabolic, and cerebral connectivity alterations in individuals with VCI. This paper examines the utility of multimodal MRI in evaluating structural changes in the cerebral cortex, integrity of white matter fiber tracts, volume and number of enlarged perivascular spaces (EPVS), alterations in the blood-brain barrier (BBB), and glymphatic system (GS) activity, and neurovascular coupling (NEV) in patients with VCI.

Keywords: vascular cognitive impairment, Glymphatic system, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, resting-state functional MRI, Dynamic Functional Connectivity, Structure-function coupling

Received: 12 Nov 2024; Accepted: 25 Feb 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Ma, Liu, Liu, Wang, Cong, Li and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Ying Li, Stem Cell Clinical Research Center, National Joint Engineering Laboratory, Regenerative Medicine, First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China
Jing Liu, Stem Cell Clinical Research Center, National Joint Engineering Laboratory, Regenerative Medicine, First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China

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