The overall long term goal of this Imaging Core is to identify structural, perfusion, and metabolic changes in the brain that predict future cognitive decline and conversion to dementia. The overall approach will be to initially study healthy elders ands age/gender matched patients with well-characterized dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease and Frontotemporal dementia using a newly acquired 4 Tesla Bruker/Siemens MRI/MRS scanner, which will be optimized for investigation of neurodegenerative disease. These initial studies will provide imaging characteristics of established dementia. We will also study a group of subjects with MCl-Peterson criteria. In subsequent years we will study increasing numbers of subjects with MCI subtypes and MCl-Peterson who likely represent early stages of AD and FTD and who are expected to ultimately convert to dementia. All subjects will be recruited and evaluated by the Clinical Core.
Alzheimer's disease affects millions of Americans, and the incidence and prevalence are growing as people get older. MRI imaging provides unique information concerning the changes in the brain which occur in demented subjects, as well as in the early stages of the disease. Imaging also helps identify other processes which lead to cognitive impairment. Thus, state of the art imaging is a critical aspect of this ADRC.
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