[1] Bousser graduated from Paris-Sorbonne University in neuro-psychiatry in 1972 with her thesis devoted to the prevention of cortical artery thrombosis in rabbits by aspirin and PGE1.

[1][2] Subsequently, she worked at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, before returning to Paris.

[3] She researched the, then unnamed, condition for the first time in 1976, when a patient entered her clinic with signs of Binswanger's disease after suffering a stroke.

[4] She found that the condition was hereditary after children of the initial patient presented similar symptoms.

[4][1] Bousser is Commander of the Legion of Honor (2013) and Grand Officer of the Order of Merit (2018)[1]