In landmark research, scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) have reported the largest-ever genome-wide association study of dementia from all causes, revealing an overlap of genetic risks including neurodegeneration, vascular factors and cerebral small-vessel disease. Genome-wide association studies help scientists identify genes associated with a particular disease or trait by exploring the entire set of DNA, or genome, of a large group of people—in this case, a dataset of 800,597 individuals, with 46,902 and 8,702 cases of all-cause dementia and vascular dementia, respectively. "Dementia is a multifactorial disease with Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia pathologies making the largest contributions—and yet, most genome-wide association studies focus just on Alzheimer's disease," said Bernard Fongang, Ph.
D., with the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health San Antonio. "We conducted such a study of all-cause dementia and discovered a substantial genetic overlap with vascular dementia.
" Fongang, who also is with the departments of biochemistry and structural biology , and population health sciences, at the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio, is corresponding contact for the study titled "A genome-wide association meta-analysis of all-cause and vascular dementia," published July 24 in Alzheimer's & Dementia . The Mega Vascular.