(Imaging Core) The overall goals of the Imaging Core are to obtain amyloid PET and high caliber MRI data to characterize Stanford ADRC participants along the AD and PD spectrums; to make these data available to a wide range of investigators at Stanford; and to provide training on the acquisition, interpretation, and analysis of imaging data relevant to neurodegenerative disease. The Imaging Core, capitalizing on Stanford's strength in brain imaging and radiochemistry, will focus on incorporation of amyloid PET imaging in conjunction with structural and functional MRI, and enable innovation for the exploration of novel PET targets. Dr. Greicius, the Core Director, has helped advance the application of functional connectivity measures to the study of AD. Dr. Mormino, the co-Director of the Imaging Core, has made contributions to characterizing the preclinical stage of AD using amyloid and tau PET. A second major focus of the Imaging Core will be to make the acquired data available to and readily used by researchers across disciplines and schools at Stanford. The Imaging Core will use the RedTree infrastructure to provide researchers with summary imaging data for PET (global and regional amyloid and tau PET values), structural measures (regional gray matter volume and thickness values), and resting state functional measures (network connectivity). The imaging data will be linked to subjects' ancillary data (including neuropsychological measures, spinal fluid proteins, plasma proteomics, etc.). This will allow the widest possible set of Stanford investigators, with or without imaging expertise, to test hypotheses using the ADRC data. The availability of amyloid PET and MRI data on the majority of clinical core participants will greatly enhance diagnostic accuracy which will fundamentally strengthen any clinical research undertaken at the Stanford ADRC. These imaging data, in conjunction with biofluid data from the Biomarker Core, will also enable classification according to the recent research framework of AD so that Stanford ADRC data can be more readily harmonized with data from other centers.
