Sunil Bansal, Shamsher Singh, Amit Sharma
Vascular dementia (VaD) causes impairment of memory and cognitive functioning due to reduction in the blood flow and oxygen supply to the brain. Vascular dementia is the second most common type of dementia after Alzheimer's disease. When the blood supply to the brain is interrupted, brain cells are deprived of vital oxygen and nutrients, causing damage to the cortex of the brain - the area associated with learning, memory, and language. Vascular disease affects multiple cell types within the neurovascular unit (NVU), including brain vascular cells (endothelial cells, pericytes, and vascular smooth muscle cells), glial cells (astrocytes and microglia), with rise in inflammatory mediators (TNF-α, NF-kB, ROS, MAPK, TGF-β, IL-1, IL-6 and cytokines. Globally in different population the causes of dementia may be mixed. Vascular dementia arises as a consequence of ischemic insults such as hemorrhage and hypoperfusion that trigger neurodegeneration. The deprivation of nerve cells from oxygen and glucose results in
depletion of nerve cell structural integrities responsible for VaD. There are number of evidences which causes neuronal loss like excitotoxicity through over calcium influx by NMDA receptor, increase ROS level produces symptoms of VaD.
