Four blood proteins track cerebrovascular progression and cognitive decline

An NUS Medicine team profiled 1,441 blood proteins in 518 memory-clinic participants and compared them with brain MRI lesions including white-matter hyperintensities, lacunes, microbleeds and cortical infarcts, plus progression on repeat imaging. Mortality associations were then validated in an independent Singapore cardiovascular cohort of 2,016 people. Four prioritized proteins—NEFL, LTBP2, CRIM1 and PLAUR—mediated cerebrovascular-disease-associated cognitive decline and predicted major cardiac and cerebrovascular events and mortality. The work could eventually combine blood tests with imaging and clinical risk, but it remains observational, with no established clinical thresholds, causality or universal validity, and cannot replace MRI or medical assessment.