The present study established a rat model of vascular dementia induced by chronic cerebral hy-poperfusion through permanent ligation of bilateral common carotid arteries. At 60 days after mod-eling, escape latency and swimming path length during hidden-platform acquisition training in Morris water maze significantly increased in the model group. In addition, the number of accurate crossings over the original platform significantly decreased, hippocampal CA1 synaptophysin and growth-associated protein 43 expression significantly decreased, cAMP response element-binding protein expression remained unchanged, and phosphorylated cAMP response element-binding protein expression significantly decreased. Results suggested that abnormal expression of hippo-campal synaptic structural protein and cAMP response element-binding protein phosphorylation played a role in cognitive impairment following chronic cerebral hypoperfusion.