Alzheimer’s disease is diagnosed based on abnormal pathology of two proteins in the brain: amyloid and tau. Research suggests, however, that other factors may also play a role. In a paper published online this week in the journal Neurology, a team of investigators at the Athinoula A. Martinos Cen...
Search Results: Alzheimer's Disease
Machine Learning Model Identified Alzheimer’s Disease-Like Structural Brain Patterns in Younger, Asymptomatic Adults
Chongzhao Ran
Chongzhao Ran, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He received a Master's degree in medicinal chemistry from China Pharmaceutical University and a PhD in medicinal chemistry from Shanghai Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry, C...
Hsiao-Ying Wey Receives 2016 New Investigator Award in Alzheimer’s Disease
The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) has awarded Hsiao-Ying (Monica) Wey, PhD, an investigator in the MGH Martinos Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School,with a 2017 New Investigator Award in Alzheimer’s Disease. The program is funded by The Rosalinde and Arthur ...
Martin Reuter
Dr. Martin Reuter is an Assistant Professor of Radiology and of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital (Assistant in Neuroscience, Dept. of Radiology and Dept. of Neurology). He is affiliated with the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the German Center...
Michael Placzek
Dr. Placzek's research focuses on studying human brain diseases with translational molecular imaging - positron emission tomography (PET). Through a multi-faceted approach, his group is working towards a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in brain diseases. Their work is ap...
Study Confirms Role of Structural Connectivity in Spread of Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology
In Alzheimer’s, the proteins amyloid-beta and tau begin to accumulate in the brain many years before any clinical signs of the disease are evident. Propagation of these proteins throughout the brain has been linked to cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s, but exactly how they spread has long been a m...
Jean Augustinack
The main goal of Dr. Augustinack's research is to validate neuroimaging, such as MRI, with ground truth histologic analyses and to advance neuroanatomical and pathological biomarkers for in vivo imaging. Her laboratory bridges the domains of ground truth histologic staining and MRI tissue propert...
Iman Aganj
Dr. Aganj's research objectives are focused on developing new medical image analysis techniques and improving existing ones so researchers and clinicians can extract the maximal amount of useful information from the images they acquire, with the goal of improving human health. These efforts range...
Publications Updates
May 11, 2020 The presubiculum links incipient amyloid and tau pathology to memory function in older persons Jacobs HIL, Augustinack JC, Schultz AP, Hanseeuw BJ, Locascio J, Amariglio RE, Papp KV, Rentz DM, Sperling RA, Johnson KA. Neurology. 2020 May 5;94(18):e1916-e1928. doi: 10.1212/WNL.00...
The Possible Role of Glow Sticks—Yes, Glow Sticks—in Treating Alzheimer’s
A new imaging probe that could help to advance therapies for Alzheimer’s disease draws its inspiration from an unlikely source. Research suggests that Alzheimer’s is closely associated with increased levels of ‘reactive oxygen species’ (ROS) in the brain, but actual, in vivo evidence of this h...
David Salat
The overarching aim of Dr. Salat's work is to understand mechanisms of neural disease and to implement novel approaches to reduce the impact of disease on the brain, cognition and clinical status. Clinically, there are two main clinical foci to his research. At the MGH Martinos Center, he directs...
Deep Learning Algorithm Can Measure Disease Severity and Change on a Continuous Spectrum
Clinicians often use imaging to evaluate both the severity and progression of disease, in many cases by assigning severity to one of several categories based on the imaging findings and seeing whether and how the classification changes on follow-up. This approach can have its limits, though. B...
Susie Huang
Susie Huang, MD, PhD, is a board-certified neuroradiologist and physician-scientist specializing in the development and translation of novel MRI techniques for investigating structure, function and pathology within the brain. Her doctoral training in physical chemistry and subsequent residency in...
The Past, Present and Future of Molecular Imaging @ Martinos
Over the past several months, the MGH Martinos Center has been both celebrating the past and looking toward the future of its molecular imaging effort – with a symposium held last fall and now a series of initiatives designed to bolster the molecular imaging community. While there has always b...
Abbas Yaseen
Abbas Yaseen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School specializing in advanced microscopy for minimally invasive, in vivo characterization of brain function in preclinical models. His group focuses on the development and application of high-resolution optical imaging...
Deep Learning Offers Quantitative Means of Monitoring Disease Progression in Retinopathy of Prematurity
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is an eye disorder affecting roughly two-thirds of premature infants weighing less than 250 g at birth and one of the leading causes of childhood blindness worldwide. Historically, clinical diagnosis of ROP has been subjective, resulting in considerable variabilit...
A New Optical Imaging Tool to Visualize Disease Through ‘Multiplexing’
A team of investigators at the MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging has developed a tool that will allow researchers to measure multiple biological components or processes at the same time, opening up a host of applications, especially related to the study of disease. They describe the tool...
Christian Farrar
The Farrar group's research program is focused on the development of novel Magnetic Resonance molecular imaging contrast agents and methods and on the development of innovative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) methods for characterizing vascular structure and function. The tools being developed i...
Novel PET Radiotracer Offers Possible ‘Smell Test’ for Dementia
Olfactory health – how well we are able to smell – is a reliable marker of the health of the brain, but the “smell identification tests” commonly used in studies of olfactory health do not offer a complete picture of what is happening. Now, using a novel PET radiotracer called Neuroflux, a team o...