28,980 Alzheimer's and dementia studies in plain English, each scored out of 100.
This large GWAS of WMH burden in community-based cohorts of individuals of European descent identifies a novel locus on chromosome 17. 5 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis Participants: 3,024 Evidence: high
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Periventricular white matter hyperintensities (WMH; PVWMH) and deep WMH (DWMH) are regional classifications of WMH and reflect proposed differences in cause. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis Participants: 26,654 Evidence: high
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White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are the most common brain-imaging feature of cerebral small vessel disease (SVD), hypertension being the main known risk factor. 1 key finding →
Evidence: moderate
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We identified 4 novel genetic loci that implicate inflammatory and glial proliferative pathways in the development of WMH in addition to previously proposed ischemic mechanisms. 2 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis Participants: 17 Evidence: high
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Dementia risk may be attenuated by physical activity (PA); however, the specific activity levels optimal for dementia prevention are unclear. 4 key findings →
Design: cohort study Participants: 1,604 Evidence: moderate
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MarkVCID2 enrolled 1883 individuals age 73.4 ± 7.5 years, 65.0% female, 24.2% Hispanic, and 27.1% non-Hispanic Black. 5 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study Participants: 1,883 Evidence: moderate
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An international working group from the Centres of Excellence in Neurodegeneration completed a structured process to develop definitions and imaging standards for markers and consequences of cerebral small vessel disease (SVD). 3 key findings →
Evidence: low
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Baseline DBP and longitudinal increases in DBP were independently associated with a greater WMHV, and the association between DBP and WMHV was greatest among blacks. 4 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study Participants: 1,281 Evidence: moderate
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Thirty percent of the cases had significant cerebrovascular parenchymal pathology scores (CVDPS), 54% had significant AD pathology, and 18% had HS. 4 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study Evidence: moderate
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Aging-associated WMHs evolve significantly over a 4-year period. 5 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study Participants: 150 Evidence: moderate
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In a large community-based sample of middle-aged adults, BI predicted an increased risk of stroke and dementia independent of vascular risk factors. 5 key findings →
Participants: 1,694 Evidence: moderate
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-statistics 0.82-0.83). We found a significant association between all-cause dementia and multimarker CSVD scores, which was independent of the FSRP as well as its individual components. 3 key findings →
Design: cohort study Participants: 1,152 Evidence: moderate
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Three survey rounds included 49 to 54 participants that agreed on VasCog-2 diagnostic criteria for preclinical, mild, and major dementia levels of vascular cognitive impairment (under the overarching term VCID). 5 key findings →
Participants: 49 Evidence: low
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We evaluated dementia-free Framingham Heart Study (generation 3) participants (mean age 48.5 years, 46.8% men) who underwent cognitive testing for memory, abstract reasoning, visual perception, attention, and executive function (n = 2,231) and brain MRI (n = 2018) to assess total white matter, lobar gray matter, and white matter hyperintensity volumes and fractional anisotropy (FA) measures. 4 key findings →
Participants: 2,231 Evidence: low
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Given the potential therapeutic effect of vascular disease control timing to reduce dementia risk, we investigated the age-related influences of vascular risk factor burden on brain structure throughout the lifespan. 4 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional Participants: 2,887 Evidence: moderate
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Cerebrovascular disease is the second most common cause of acquired cognitive impairment and dementia and contributes to cognitive decline in the neurodegenerative dementias. 5 key findings →
Evidence: low
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White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are frequently seen on brain magnetic resonance imaging scans of older people. 1 key finding →
Evidence: low
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The frontal lobes are most severely affected by SIVD. 4 key findings →
Participants: 78 Evidence: low
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The sample included dementia-free participants (mean age 40 ± 9 years; 53% women) of the Framingham Heart Study third-generation cohort with cognitive testing of memory, abstract reasoning, visual perception, attention, and executive function (n = 2,126). 4 key findings →
Participants: 2,126 Evidence: moderate
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Mid-life stroke risk factors have been related to late-life cognitive impairment. 4 key findings →
Participants: 1,841 Evidence: moderate
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Differences in white matter hyperintensities (WMH) associated with increasing cognitive impairment appear related to both extent and spatial location. 5 key findings →
Design: post-hoc analysis Participants: 26 Evidence: low
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Systemic inflammation is associated with ischemia and Alzheimer disease (AD). 3 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional Evidence: low
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The American Heart Association developed the ideal cardiovascular health (CVH) index as a simple tool to promote CVH; yet, its association with brain atrophy and dementia remains unexamined. 4 key findings →
Participants: 2,750 Evidence: moderate
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Perivascular spaces (PVS) visible on MRI scans may represent key aspects in the pathophysiology of stroke and dementia, including cerebral small vessel disease and glymphatic dysfunction. 4 key findings →
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Free full text links and the Full text may need a subscription label come from Unpaywall, Europe PMC and OpenAlex records of free copies, checked 10 Oct 2026. A study with neither is unknown, not paywalled. Show only studies that are free to read
This is alzhub's own score. It is not an official metric, not an impact factor, and no journal, publisher or ranking body endorses it. We built it so that a reader who is not a scientist can tell a landmark trial from a conference abstract without having to already know the difference. Every point comes from one of 20 components, all of them printed on the study itself, so you can disagree with our arithmetic rather than having to trust the total.
Journals are placed in ordered tiers, never given a numeric impact factor — we could not verify current impact factors from a source we control, and an invented one would be worse than none. Tier 1 is the top-tier general journals (NEJM, The Lancet, JAMA, Nature, Science, Nature Medicine); tier 2 is the leading specialty journals; tier 3 is every other peer-reviewed journal. A separate part scores how much the journal's own papers are cited, which tells the tier-3 journals apart.
Two rules we don't bend. First, we never fill in a missing value: if a record does not state a sample size or a design, that component scores zero, and if we simply have no data for a part, such as a citation count, that part is left out and the study is scored on the parts we could check. The study card says which. Second, anything that is not a peer-reviewed article is capped at 16/100 and carries a warning chip — so a conference abstract or a company press release can never outrank a peer-reviewed paper, no matter how good it looks.
We rank a rigorous null result — a good trial showing that something does not work — above an early positive finding. Someone deciding whether to buy a supplement is served by that, and the rigour is already counted by the design and journal components.
The score is computed from the published data alone and is reproducible: the same file always yields the same numbers.
See the whole rubric drawn out → — four charts covering all 28,980 studies: how the scores are spread and where the cap bites, which of the 20 components the library is strong and weak on, which subjects rest on stronger evidence, and what kinds of study each subject is actually built from.
This is a large sample of the Alzheimer's literature, not an exhaustive index of it. It holds 28,980 records, built mostly from automated pulls of Europe PMC (62.8% of the library) and OpenAlex (17.6%), plus smaller pulls from PubMed, Crossref and medRxiv. If a study, a drug, or a finding isn't here, that is not evidence it doesn't exist in the literature — it may simply not have been pulled in yet.
1,038 records (3.6% of the library) are not peer-reviewed — 966 of those are preprints posted before any journal review, and the rest are conference abstracts, regulatory notices and reports. Every study card on this page states its status plainly, and the score above is capped for anything that isn't a peer-reviewed article.
See the full, machine-readable breakdown of this library's coverage →