This supplementary issue of International Psychogeriatrics, titled “Vascular Burden of the Brain,” is the product of a special meeting of the International Psychogeriatric Association (IPA), with involvement from Alzheimer's Disease International, the World Federation of Neurology Dementia Study Group, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the European Commission for Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Compounds (CPMP). The meeting was held in Madrid in November 2001 and was a closed gathering of many leading international experts on various aspects of vascular brain disease. Attendees included basic scientists, psychiatrists, neurologists, epidemiologists, and neuroradiologists. This wealth of expertise, both from clinicians and scientists, emphasized the necessity for interdisciplinary research into vascular disorders of the brain that affect cognition and behavior. One aim of the meeting was to produce a position paper that summarized the current situation in this field, both highlighting recent advances and identifying important areas where further progress is required. This paper, entitled “Vascular Cognitive Impairment,” has been published in Lancet Neurology (O'Brien et al., Lancet Neurology, February 2003, 2, 11–20). This issue of International Psychogeriatrics contains the individual articles submitted by participants in the special IPA meeting in November 2001.