Immune Cell Signatures in Vascular Cognitive Impairment and Dementia

Aim 1: We will test the ability of blood cell immune profiles to define and predict overall cognitive status. We will stimulate peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from people with or without cognitive decline and quantify cytokine production. We will bioinformatically and statistically identify profile characteristics that define and predict cognitive status. Aim 2: We test the ability of blood immune cell profiles to identify subjects with any/all of three clinical risk factors for VCID: hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and obesity. We will define cytokine profiles as outlined for Aim 1 from circulating immune cells of people with or without each of these risk factors for VCID, alone or in combination.