Advances in the genetics of cerebrovascular disease and stroke

MEDLINE searches identified epidemiologic, experimental, and clinical studi es on the genetics of cerebrovascular disease and stroke, including the fol lowing topics: genetic epidemiology of stroke; genetics of systemic disorde rs that cause ischemic stroke, including coagulation disorders, connective tissue disorders, vasculopathies, metabolic disorders, and disorders of unk nown etiology; and genetics of systemic disorders that cause hemorrhagic st roke. Recent discoveries in stroke genetics involve the genetic basis of mo nogenic disorders such as cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with sub cortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy and sickle cell disease. Reproduc ing similar advances in other forms of cerebrovascular disease and stroke w ill be mure difficult because their inheritance is complex, multigenic, and heterogeneous, However, the future is promising with the application of mo lecular genetic approaches such as linkage analysis, allele-sharing methods , association studies, and polygenic analysis of experimental crosses as we ll as the transmission/disequilibrium test-a statistical method for detecti on of linkage between a marker and a disease-susceptibility locus.