Plain English Summary

Dr Roxana Carare from the University of Southampton is studying vascular dementia, a common form of dementia where the brain’s blood supply is impaired. She believes vascular dementia happens because the brain cannot get rid of waste and fluid properly. The brain removes its waste along extremely thin pathways embedded in the walls of narrow blood vessels. Dr Carare believes vascular dementia occurs in part because these pathways are not correctly anchored to the blood vessel wall. This means that water channels do not work correctly and waste cannot be eliminated properly from the brain. In this project, jointly funded by the BHF, the Stroke Association and Alzheimer’s Society, Dr Carare will study how this ‘anchoring’ affects water transport and the brain. She will study waste elimination in mice with disrupted anchoring, and compare these mouse brains with human brains with vascular dementia. She will also analyse mouse brains with disrupted channels for water exchange. This research could lead to targeted treatments for vascular dementia that work by draining waste fluid from the brain.