Susanne van Veluw

Our lab is interested in the crosslinks between cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) and dementia. We use a combination of advanced neuroimaging techniques in human brain tissue and animal models to unravel the histopathological underpinnings of neuroimaging markers of SVD and to get at the pathophysiological mechanisms involved. Our research focuses on cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). Sporadic CAA is one of the two most common forms of SVD affecting the brains of older individuals. CAA is characterized by the accumulation of amyloid β in the walls of leptomeningeal and cortical blood vessels, and frequently co-occurs with parenchymal amyloid β deposits in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Patients with severe CAA have increased risk to suffer from symptomatic large intracerebral hemorrhages, which are often fatal. Even in the absence of these catastrophic hemorrhages, the accrual of numerous small silent ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes over time, can lead to cognitive impairment and dementia in affected individuals. Currently there are no effective treatment strategies available to cure or slow down the progression of the disease. 

Our lab uses translational imaging approaches, ranging from ex vivo MRI-guided histopathology in human brain tissue to in vivo two-photon microscopy in mice to better understand the pathophysiology of sporadic and hereditary CAA. In particular, we are interested in unraveling the mechanisms of hemorrhage formation in CAA and studying the driving force of perivascular amyloid β clearance, with the goal to find novel targets for therapeutic intervention aimed at preventing hemorrhagic stroke and cognitive impairment in patients with SVD.