Where Vascular Disease and Alzheimer’s Meet: Shared Pathways to Cognitive Decline

Watch our latest webinar, where we explore why vascular brain injury matters in cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease, and how imaging can help reveal its role in clinical research. Prof Joanna Wardlaw, an internationally recognised expert in cerebral small vessel disease, stroke, brain ageing, and neuroimaging, will explain how vascular imaging features such as white matter hyperintensities, infarcts, cerebral microbleeds, lacunes, enlarged perivascular spaces, and brain atrophy relate to cognitive outcomes and can be assessed pragmatically in busy clinical or research settings. Jane Waugh, PhD will then examine the vascular biomarkers most relevant to Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials and how they inform eligibility, safety monitoring, prognosis, and disease characterization.

What you’ll learn:

Why vascular brain injury matters in cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease, including how vascular and neurodegenerative pathologies can coexist and influence disease progression.

How to recognize key vascular imaging biomarkers, including white matter hyperintensities, cerebral microbleeds, lacunes, infarcts, cortical superficial siderosis, and enlarged perivascular spaces.

What these biomarkers reveal about prognosis and underlying pathology

How vascular imaging can support Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials, from patient stratification to treatment-safety monitoring, ARIA-risk assessment, and interpretation of clinical outcomes.

About the speakers and moderator

Professor Joanna Wardlaw, CBE, MB ChB (Hons), MD, FRCR, FRCP, FMedSci, FRSE

Joanna is Professor of Applied Neuroimaging at the University of Edinburgh, Foundation Chair of the UK DRI at Edinburgh, Director of the Row Fogo Centre for Research into Ageing and the Brain, and Consultant Neuroradiologist for NHS Lothian. Internationally recognised for her work on cerebral small vessel disease, stroke, brain ageing, and neuroimaging, her research focuses on understanding the brain and its blood supply, and on developing treatments to improve blood flow to the brain. Working with many colleagues, she has been instrumental in advancing understanding of the causes of cerebral small vessel disease and is now testing treatments in clinical trials. She has set up national research imaging facilities, co-ordinated international research networks, advanced stroke care worldwide and published over 1000 papers. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, she has received awards from many UK and international brain and heart organisations and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to Medicine and Neuroscience in 2016.

Jane Waugh, Senior Biomarker Scientist – IXICO

Jane is a Senior Biomarker Scientist specializing in neuroimaging and biomarker strategy for CNS clinical development. With more than seven years of research experience spanning neuroscience, neuroinflammation, Alzheimer’s disease, and stroke, she supports biotechnology companies in translating scientific objectives into effective imaging strategies for product development and clinical trials. Jane is a recipient of fellowships from the Koerner Family Foundation, the SC-IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence, and American Heart Association (AHA).

Moderator: Robin Wolz, CSO/CMO - IXICO

Robin Wolz has over 15 years' experience in the development of innovative analytics solutions in healthcare with a focus on imaging technology. Prior to IXICO, Robin held different roles at Philips in the Research and Diagnostic X-Ray divisions. Robin holds a PhD in medical imaging and computer science from Imperial College London, focused on early detection of Alzheimer's disease. He is the co-author of more than 100 publications and holds multiple patents in the field of medical imaging and AI data analytics.

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