Reduction in vascular contributions to dementia due to the same technologies that have greatly reduced cardiovascular mortality over the past 40 years seems like a reasonable hypothesis.<p>A lot of the damage to your brain is due to deterioration of blood vessels, leading to a continual series of tiny unseen strokes, in effect, silently destroying tiny areas of brain tissue. The level to which that is present in an individual has been shown to correlate pretty well with cognitive impairment.