BDNF and vascular dementia: In both the vascular dementia animal model and normal aging model, low-frequency rTMS (1 Hz) at low intensity alleviates cognitive impairment by increasing the expressions of synaptic protein markers and activating brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)/tropomyosin-related kinase B (TrkB), the key mediators of neuronal and synaptic maturation [178, 182].