MAPT and Cognitive impairment: For example, in a person with evidence of cognitive impairment on standardized testing, with evidence of small vessel disease on neuroimaging, along with significant hippocampal atrophy and evidence of significant deposits of amyloid on imaging, the diagnosis of dementia would be attributable to several conditions, including cerebrovascular disease, hippocampal sclerosis, and AD, although a definitive diagnosis of AD would not be possible until tau load was assessed.