‘Silent Strokes’ Linked to Memory Loss

New research links “silent strokes,” or small spots of dead brain cells, found in about one out of four older adults to memory loss in the elderly. The findings appear in the Jan. 3, 2012, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“The new aspect of this study of memory loss in the elderly is that it examines silent strokes and hippocampal shrinkage simultaneously,” said study author Adam M. Brickman, PhD, of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. For more information, click here to read the full release.