Imaging Brain Amyloid Load and Vascular Function in Alzheimers Disease

Study ID
STU 082010-157

Cancer Related
No

Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Study Sites

  • UT Southwestern-Other
  • UT Southwestern-Other

Contact
Yamei Cheng
214-645-2544
yamei.cheng@utsouthwestern.edu

Principal Investigator
Hanzhang Lu

Summary

The goal of this study is to use non-invasive methods for quantitative measurements of vascular parameters and neuronal activities in the brain in patients with Alzheimer[Right Quote]s Disease (AD), patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and age-matched controls. Alzheimer[Right Quote]s Disease is known to be associated with loss of memory and cognition, which is caused by dysfunction of neurons in the brain. Therefore, it[Right Quote]s is crucial to be able to evaluate the neuronal activities. Furthermore, recent evidences have suggested that the reasons these neurons are not functioning well is because they are [Double Quote]starving[Double Quote], lack of blood supply to provide nutrition and take away waster. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the vascular function, which is the [Double Quote]plumbing[Double Quote] network to supply nutrition.
Results obtained from the functional MRI scan reflect how well the neurons function during the performance of the memory task. The results obtained from the CO2 breathing task reflects how well the vasculature responds to a vasodilatory stimuli. A combination of these results will help us delineate the extent of dysfunction in the neurons and the vasculature and probe the inherent cause for the memory loss associated with AD patients. For this study, the participants will be asked to lay down in the magnet with minimal movement. The scan session will first start with a few anatomical imaging protocols to localize the brain and to allow identification of our regions of interest. Then the blood supply to the brain will be measured using

Participant Eligibility

- Men and post-menopausal women (defined as the time when there have been no menstrual periods for 12 consecutive months and no other biological or physiological cause can be identified.)
- Ages 50-90 years
- All races and ethnicities
- Able to read, speak, and understand English (The cohort of subjects that this study will recruit from the Alzheimer’s Center, are all English-speaking subjects [verified by Dr. Myron Weiner].