Multiple berry aneurysms are not unusual. About 25% of patients have more than one aneurysm. They can occur in any blood vessel which supplies the brain, but they are most often seen in the large arteries at the base of the brain. Berry aneurysms are associated with polycystic kidney disease and coarctation of the aorta. Rarely, berry aneurysm can run in families.

Other types of cerebral aneurysm may involve widening (dilatation) of the entire circumference of the blood vessel in an area, or may appear as a ballooning out of part of a blood vessel.

These types of aneurysms can occur in any blood vessel which supplies the brain. Trauma and infection, causes for injury to the blood vessel wall, are two reasons which lead to the development of these types of aneurysm.

Symptoms usually do not appear until complications develop. Bleeding is the most common cause of symptoms, with subarachnoid hemorrhage being the usual type of bleed. Weakness, numbness, or other loss of nerve function (neurologic deficits) may occur because of pressure from the aneurysm on adjacent brain tissue or because of reduced blood flow caused by a spasm of other blood vessels near a ruptured aneurysm.

It is estimated that 5% of the population has some type of aneurysm. However, the incidence of ruptured aneurysm is approximately 10 out of 100,000 people per year.

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