Effects of Carotid Artery Stiffness on Cerebral Small‐Vessel Disease and Cognition
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Carotid artery stiffness is associated with cognitive impairment and dementia, but the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. We examined the associations of carotid artery stiffness with cerebral small‐vessel disease markers, cognition, and dementia subtypes in a memory clinic cohort. Methods and Results A total of 272 participants underwent carotid ultrasonography, 3 Tesla brain magnetic resonance imaging, and neuropsychological assessment. Carotid ultrasonography was used to assess β‐index, pressure‐strain elastic modulus, and pulse‐wave velocity‐β. Brain magnetic resonance images were graded for cerebral small‐vessel disease markers, including white matter hyperintensities, lacunes, and cerebral microbleeds. Participants were classified as having no cognitive impairment, cognitive impairment and no dementia, or dementia subtyped as Alzheimer disease and vascular dementia. Cognition was assessed using National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke–Canadian Stroke Network harmonization battery. After adjusting for age, sex, cardiovascular risk factors, and diseases, multivariable models showed that β‐index ( β =0.69; P =0.002), elastic modulus ( β =0.78; P <0.001), and pulse‐wave velocity‐β ( β =0.80; P <0.001) were associated with white matter hyperintensities, and elastic modulus (odds ratio [OR], 1.39 [95% CI, 1.04–1.85]) and pulse‐wave velocity‐β (OR, 1.47 [95% CI, 1.10–1.98]) were independently associated with lacunes. Similarly, β‐index (OR, 2.04 [95% CI, 1.14–4.13]), elastic modulus (OR, 2.22 [95% CI, 1.25–4.42]), and pulse‐wave velocity‐β (OR, 2.50 [95% CI, 1.36–5.18]) were independently associated with vascular dementia. Carotid stiffness measures were independently associated with worse performance in global cognition, visuomotor speed, visuospatial function, and executive function. These associations became largely nonsignificant after further adjusting for cerebral small‐vessel disease markers. Conclusions In memory clinic patients, carotid artery stiffness was associated with white matter hyperintensities and lacunes, impairment in global and domain‐specific cognition, and causative subtypes of dementia, particularly vascular. The effects of carotid stiffness on cognition were not independent of, and were partially mediated by, cerebral small‐vessel disease.
Stored with the screening record, where it is evidence for the labels above.
How this classification was reachedexpand
The three-model screen
all 5,600 screened works →All three models called this out of scope.
Clinical cohort study of carotid artery stiffness, small-vessel disease and cognition.
It examines carotid stiffness and dementia outcomes in patients, not research practice.
Clinical cohort study linking carotid stiffness to cognition and dementia, not research practice.
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".