Mental Health After Stroke and Transient Ischemic Attack: Neuroimaging, Behavioral Monitoring, and Modifiable Lifestyle Factors
Stroke and transient ischemic attack (TIA) are major cerebrovascular events that can lead not only to physical disability but also to substantial psychological and behavioral consequences. Depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, cognitive complaints, fatigue, apathy, and reduced social participation are common in stroke and TIA survivors, and may negatively affect rehabilitation, quality of life, treatment adherence, and long-term prognosis. Recent advances in wearable accelerometry, large-scale population cohorts, and brain imaging have created new opportunities to understand how everyday behaviors, lifestyle factors, and neurobiological mechanisms jointly shape mental health outcomes after cerebrovascular events. However, post-stroke psychological research has often focused mainly on depression, while broader mental health outcomes and potentially modifiable protective factors remain insufficiently explored.
The goal of this Research Topic is to bring together interdisciplinary studies that examine mental health outcomes after stroke and TIA, with a particular emphasis on psychological, behavioral, and lifestyle perspectives, complemented by neurobiological and clinical evidence. We aim to highlight how physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep, social participation, and psychological resilience, alongside neuroimaging markers and lesion characteristics, may contribute to post-stroke and post-TIA mental health. Particular attention will be given to studies that move beyond single-outcome approaches and investigate multiple mental health outcomes, risk profiles, underlying mechanisms, and intervention-relevant factors. By integrating evidence from clinical cohorts, population-based datasets, wearable monitoring, psychological assessment, and neuroimaging studies, this Research Topic seeks to promote a more comprehensive understanding of mental health after cerebrovascular disease and to identify potential targets for prevention, screening, rehabilitation, and supportive care.
We welcome original research articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, brief research reports, clinical studies, perspective articles, methodological papers, and study protocols. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
– post-stroke and post-TIA depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, fatigue, apathy, cognitive complaints, emotional regulation, and quality of life;
– the role of physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep, and social engagement as modifiable determinants of mental health outcomes;
behavioral monitoring using wearable devices or accelerometers to capture everyday functioning and lifestyle patterns;
– neuroimaging predictors of mental health outcomes, including white matter hyperintensities, brain atrophy, lesion location, microstructural integrity, and cerebrovascular burden;
– mechanisms linking vascular brain injury to psychological outcomes;
– risk prediction models for mental health outcomes after cerebrovascular events;
– psychological, lifestyle, or rehabilitation interventions designed to improve mental health after stroke and TIA.
Article types and fees
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
- Brief Research Report
- Case Report
- Clinical Trial
- Community Case Study
- Conceptual Analysis
- Data Report
- Editorial
- FAIR² Data
- FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.
Keywords: Stroke, Transient Ischemic Attack, Post-Stroke Depression, Anxiety, Mental Health, Neuroimaging, Physical Activity, Accelerometer, Sleep, Psychological Resilience
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
