This is an application for continued funding of the University of California, Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center (UCD ADC). The overall goal of the Center is to promote research on Alzheimer's disease (AD) throughout Northern California. More specifically, the ADC will continue to develop and provide a research infrastructure to promote investigator interaction, facilitate subject recruitment for individual investigators, and create research resources including a subject pool, a database, and a tissue bank. The Clinical Core will draw patients from a number of existing clinics, including two California Alzheimer's Disease Diagnostic and Treatment Centers (ADDTCs) in Sacramento and Berkeley as well as VA, county, and University clinics, to provide a large, ethnically diverse group of dementia patients representative of the population of Northern California. All patients will be evaluated at either the Sacramento or Berkeley sites, or at a Satellite clinic closely tied to one of these parent sites. A number of methods have been developed to assure high quality and reliable data. Clinical data, comprising the results of demographic information, history, physical and neurological examination, cognitive and behavioral assessments, and neuroimaging data will be entered into an electronic database. Annual reevaluations will be performed on all patients meeting criteria for inclusion into the longitudinal research cohort. Matched control subjects will undergo the identical evaluations and will be followed longitudinally. The Neuropathology Core will obtain neuropathological examinations on patients and controls who have been followed longitudinally. Autopsy services will be provided through mechanisms permitting brain removal by rapidly dispatched dissectors able to process tissue locally, with transport to Davis for neuropathological evaluation. These neuropathological data will also be entered into the data base and both the data and tissue made available to investigators. The Administrative Core has developed a formal structure to advise the principal investigator on the allocation of center resources and the effective integration of all core and research components of the center. The Center Executive Committee is the principal decision making body of the center, with additional advice provided by an intramural University Advisory Committee, an External Advisory Committee, an ad hoc Pilot Grant Review Committee, and a Community Advisory Committee. The Information Transfer Core will enhance the collective functions of the ADC by training new clinicians and investigators, promoting and disseminating ADC activities to the University, the Northern California Alzheimer Research community and caregivers, and by providing a number of formal mechanisms for increasing interactions between clinicians, researchers, and members of the academic community.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 1156 publications
