05 Jul 17. Investigate@SVDs starts
The Investigate@SVDs study is a further development in our programme of work to understand cerebral small vessel disease.
Investigate@SVDs first volunteer
Dr Gordon Blair, alongside our radiographer, Iona Hamilton, welcomed our first volunteer for this study to the Edinburgh Imaging Facility RIE.
What is Small Vessel Disease (SVD)
Small vessel disease (SVD) is characterised by damage to deep grey and white matter structures of the brain, causing a fifth of all strokes and up to half of all cases of dementia amongst a range of other medical problems.
Fortunately advances in neuroimaging, mainly with MRI, are improving quantification, observation and investigation of SVD - focussing on three areas:
1. quantifying the total SVD burden
2. imaging brain microstructural integrity
3. imaging vascular malfunction
The Investigate-SVDs study will use the advanced capabilities of the Edinburgh Imaging Facility RIE's brain optimised research MRI scanner (Siemens Magnetom Prisma 3T) to understand how changes in the way the brain's smallest blood vessels work lead to disease.
Collaborative partners
The study is being performed in collaboration with researchers in Munich, Maastricht, Utrecht and Oxford as part of the larger SVDs@Target project which includes a range of laboratory studies in addition to three multi-centre clinical studies.
The project is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme (project number 666881).