OF THE CLINICAL CORE The over-arching goal of the Core will be to provide research diagnostic evaluations for a large clinical population with a special emphasis on participants who are followed longitudinally and tracked to autopsy to provide well-characterized participants for the research projects conducted by ADRC investigators and collaborators. Important focuses of the Clinical Core?as for the Yale ADRC broadly?include cellular neuroscience, synaptic mechanisms, and an emphasis on systematic storage of biospecimens for current and future biomarker studies. The importance of neuroimaging and fluid biomarkers for AD diagnosis and therapeutic development is increasing well appreciated, and recent research has emphasized the importance of classifying patients according to the presence of ?-amyloid deposition, pathologic tau, and neurodegeneration (ATN). The Yale ADRC Imaging, Biomarker, and Neuropathology Cores and specific Developmental Projects will seek to develop these methods with relevance to AD and related disorders. In partnership with these efforts, the Clinical Core will undertake the collection of a wide range of imaging studies and fluid biomarker specimens across the full spectrum of AD cross-sectionally and during the full course of AD longitudinally.
Aim 1 will maintain the Core Population through enrollment of 250 new participants on the full continuum of AD (from preclinical to dementia), as well as non-AD dementias and normal controls.
Aim 2 will enroll these participants in the Uniform Data Set (UDS) population and make the UDS measures available to the National Alzheimer?s Coordinating Center (NACC) for national studies.
Aim 3 will enroll subjects into the Autopsy Program.
Aim 4 will provide appropriate subjects for the clinical studies affiliated with the ADRC.
Aim 5 will collect biological specimens for Yale ADRC and other researchers for biomarker studies.
Aim 6 will assist the Research Education Core in training future clinical and translational researchers in AD and related disorders.
These Aims will provide ADRC affiliated investigators the ready ability to test biomarkers?once validated in AD dementia?in the earliest stages of AD pathogenesis.
