Images of CAA

This project is all about showing research on cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) through pictures. These pictures help explain the science in a visual way.

Every day, young researchers use special imaging tools to study CAA. These tools create very detailed and interesting pictures. We want to share some of these examples with a wider audience because they are not only helpful to learn more about CAA, but they are also rather beautiful.

We believe research should be shared in ways that everyone can understand. With this project, our goal is to provide patients and their families a glimpse into the research that we do.

It is important to note that many of these examples come from individuals with CAA who donated their brains. These donations are a priceless gift to science, and we are deeply grateful for them.

These images show a blood vessel in the brain of someone with CAA. The two colors in the wall of the blood vessel (the outer ring of the doughnut shape) represent two things: the amyloid protein and the normal cells of the blood vessel. The presence of the amyloid protein in these blood vessels is one of the first signs that there is CAA in the brain.

This is an image of one of the smallest blood vessels in the brain, a so-called capillary. The brown color shows where the amyloid protein is around the capillary. The presence of the amyloid protein is one of the first signs that there is CAA in the brain. The purple dots are normal brain cells.

This image is a close-up of a small bleed in a brain vessel, marked by the yellow lines. The yellow lines show parts of the blood vessel that were damaged by the bleed. The two swollen cells in the lower left corner of the picture are brain cells. These cells reacted to the small bleed that happened nearby. These tiny bleeds are called "microbleeds" and are often seen in people with CAA. We think that these microbleeds are damaging to the brain cells. Looking at images like these can help us understand how microbleeds happen and finding new ways to try to prevent them.

This image shows many blood vessels, some normal and some affected by CAA. The small blue circles are normal vessels, while the red circles show vessels where the walls are filled with the amyloid protein. Pictures like these tell us that over time, in CAA, the healthy cells in the vessel walls are replaced by the amyloid protein. However, this picture also shows that this does not happen to all vessels. Also, you can see red star shapes, which show the amyloid protein that can be found in the brain tissue, not in the blood vessels. This star-shaped amyloid protein buildup is typically seen in the brain of someone with Alzheimer’s disease.