Race Against Dementia: Team Vascular

History and overview

Damage in the small blood vessels in the brain (small vessel disease (SVD)) is the commonest cause of vascular dementia, one in five of all dementias, and worsens cognition in people with Alzheimer’s disease. However, vascular causes of dementia are very neglected with very few trials of prevention or treatment, possibly because small vessel disease  is not well understood. 

This project, builds on the completed large phase II trial (LaCunar Intervention Trial 2, LACI-2), where two drugs (cilostazol and isosorbide mononitrate) were tested with patients with SVD-stroke and who were at high risk of vascular cognitive impairment and dementia. The drugs were tested to see if they improved small vessel function. After 1-year of treatment it was observed that there was a reduction in cognitive decline, dependency, recurrent stroke and improvement in quality of life. 

A new larger trial, LACI-3, will confirm these preliminary results in patients with SVD-stroke but also in other SVD clinical presentations. 

The establishment of our Race Against Dementia team, "Team Vascular"  will help to accelerate the LACI-2 & LACI-3 research into finding treatments for small vessel disease, vascular cognitive impairment and dementia.

About the Project

Team Vascular will concentrate on four workstreams:

1. LACI-Cog
2. LACI-Rat
3. LACI-Hunt
4. LACI-Ignite

Meet Our Team

Leading Team Vascular is Professor Joanna Wardlaw, alongside an impressive team of co-investigators:

• Prof Anna Williams
• Prof Malcolm Macleod
• Dr Fergus Doubal
• Dr Tom Russ
• Prof Emily Sena
• Dr Lucy Stirland
• Dr Michael Stringer
• Dr Tim Wilkinson
• Dr Una Clancy

As part of the funding we have also appointed two PhD students:

• Maija Pyykkönen - LACI-Cog
• Daria (Dasha) Gramenitskaya - LACI-Hunt