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Until recent years, cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) has drawn little attention mostly because small cerebral arteries were difficult to observe in imaging and in vivo studies. Furthermore, although some fields of vascular neurology have been revolutionized with reperfusion therapies, stroke specialists have little to offer for diseases that affect small cerebral vessels. Nevertheless, SVDs play a crucial role in a large variety of conditions such as aging, stroke, cognitive impairment, and other age-related disabilities (motor and gait impairment, mood disorders, and urinary symptoms). The term SVD is used with various meanings according to the context (ie, clinical, research, neuropathology, and neuroimaging aspects). From a neuropathological perspective, SVD encompasses a group of pathologies that affect the perforating arteries, arterioles, capillaries that are located in the brain parenchyma or in the …