A new study revealed that women who have experienced sexual assault are more likely to develop a type of brain damage connected to cognitive decline, dementia and stroke.

The study was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health by the director of the Women's Biobehavioral Health Laboratory, Professor Rebecca Thurston.

Thurston told CNN that “it could be either childhood sexual abuse or adult sexual assault.”

“Based upon population data, most women have their sexual assaults when they are in early adolescence and early adulthood,” she added, “so these are likely early experiences that we're seeing the marks of later in life.”

The study “looked for signs of white matter hyperintensities in the brain scans of 145 midlife women with no prior history of cardiovascular disease, stroke or dementia,” according to CNN. “However, 68% of participants had experienced trauma, and for 23% of the women, that trauma was sexual assault.”

The study found that those who have undergone sexual trauma have greater white matter hyperintensities in their brain, which is a sign of a small vessel disease with connections to mortality, dementia, stroke and cognitive decline.

According to BBC, this study was added to a long list of research papers on the long-term impact of sexual assault on the body and mind of the victim.

“We need to keep our attention on this issue of sexual violence against women and not let it fall off the radar screen of society, because it continues to be a major women's health issue,” Thurston said.

Previous studies found that sexual trauma is linked to development of higher levels of key risk factors for heart disease.

Additionally, it was found that women who reported experiencing sexual assault were three times more likely to experience depression and twice as likely to have anxiety and insomnia than women who have no history of sexual trauma.

According to BBC, statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that more than 1 in 3 women in the United States, and 1 in 4 men, have experienced sexual assault at least once in their lifetime.