The Knight ADRC has supported many investigators at Washington University and at other institutions over the years. We wish to avoid the situation where two investigators study the same research question to avoid duplication of effort and potential conflict. To determine if your topic has already been studied with our resources, please search our database. If you find that your topic or a related topic has been submitted, you may wish to contact the investigator to inquire about their findings to determine how you might proceed. You may wish to collaborate or modify your request to avoid overlap. The results below reflect requests made since online requests have been accepted. As such, not all fields will have data as certain information, such as aims, were not collected until recently. If an entry has been assigned an ID number (e.g. T1004), the full request has been submitted and is either approved, disapproved or in process. If an entry has no ID number, then it represents a submission that has not yet been reviewed. Search terms are applied across an entire requests application including variables not displayed below. A more specific, detailed search may yield better results depending upon your needs.
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Investigator: Peter Millar
Project Title: Comparing atypical tau PET patterns to clinical samples
Date: June 14, 2024 at 4:56 pm
Request ID: D2421
Aim 1: Compare spatial patterns of tau PET between data-driven subgroups identified in the Knight ADRC and a clinical sample of atypical AD patients from the MDC
Aim 2: Test data-driven classification of tau PET in atypical AD patients
Aim 3: Test group differences between tau PET defined subgroups in demographic characteristics, cognitive performance, genetic AD risk factors, network connectivity, and biofluid- and imaging-based AD biomarkers (where available).
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Investigator: Tammie Benzinger
Project Title: Comparative Analysis of FreeSurfer Version 5.3 vs 7
Date: June 5, 2024 at 10:57 am
Request ID: D2420
Aim 1: We aim to compare MR volumetric, thickness, and surface areas data for each region generated from FreeSurfer-5.3 and 7. We hypothesize that the global MR measures will be significantly different between software versions whilst regional values may be similar in only certain structures.
Aim 2: We aim to evaluate whether FreeSurfer version significantly influences the outputs of other modalities, such as amyloid and tau PET. We hypothesize that the FreeSurfer output from both versions will produce similar results in other imaging modalities.
Aim 3: We aim to quantify the reasons for failure in each FreeSurfer version. We hypothesize that FreeSurfer version 5.3 under-represents the segmentation in the brain, whereas FreeSurfer version 7 over-represents the segmentation in the brain.
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Investigator: Le Shi
Project Title: Associations of Sleep Patterns with Biomarkers in Dementia
Date: May 8, 2024 at 9:59 pm
Request ID: D2419
Aim 1: To determine the association of sleep regularity with PET, CSF and plasma biomarkers in AD.
Aim 2: To determine the association of sleep wave activity with PET, CSF and plasma biomarkers in AD.
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Investigator: Xue Gao
Project Title: Brain aging signatures in the plasma proteome track health and disease
Date: May 8, 2024 at 9:57 pm
Request ID: D2418
Aim 1: Identify Proteomic Biomarkers: To identify and characterize plasma proteomic biomarkers that are specifically associated with brain aging, using high-throughput proteomics technologies such as mass spectrometry.
Aim 2: Correlate Biomarkers with Clinical Outcomes: To establish correlations between identified proteomic biomarkers and clinical outcomes related to cognitive decline and other age-related neurological diseases.
Aim 3: Develop Predictive Models: To develop and validate predictive models that use changes in the plasma proteome to forecast the onset and progression of cognitive impairment and neurodegenerative conditions in elderly populations.
Aim 4: Assess Intervention Efficacy: To evaluate the effectiveness of dietary and pharmacological interventions in modulating identified proteomic biomarkers and altering the trajectory of brain aging and associated cognitive decline.
Investigator: Robert Schmidt
Project Title: Atlas with annotated neuropathology images
Date: April 26, 2024 at 1:25 pm
Request ID: D2417
Aim 1: Free resource to the scientific community
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Investigator: Behnaz Jafari
Project Title: Enhancing Alzheimer’s Disease Detection: Fusion of EEG and fMRI Data Using Artificial Neural Networks
Date: April 23, 2024 at 11:03 am
Request ID: D2416
Aim 1: To develop a graph neural network encoder using non-linear Granger causality methods to model effective connectivity in fMRI data, focusing on individual brain regions in both healthy controls and individuals with Alzheimer’s disease.
Aim 2: To construct a recurrent neural network (RNN), such as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), encoder for EEG data across different frequency bands, for brain regions, targeting both healthy controls and Alzheimer’s disease cases.
Aim 3: To create a neural network-based decoder framework to integrate features extracted from MEG/EEG and fMRI time series data, leveraging the outputs from the RNN and GNN encoders, respectively.
Aim 4: To apply the developed framework to a datasets obtained from healthy controls and individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease for comprehensive analysis and validation
Investigator: Oskar Hansson
Project Title: Head-to-head comparison of different plasma p-tau217 assays
Date: April 23, 2024 at 1:32 am
Request ID: D2415
Aim 1: Replicate key findings (mass-spec p-tau217 performing better than immunoassay) to support generalizability to broader population.
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Investigator: Sheng Chih (Peter) Jin
Project Title: Investigating the impact of somatic mosaicism on Alzheimer’s disease
Date: April 11, 2024 at 11:48 am
Request ID: D2414
Aim 1: Along with the Cruchaga lab, we will identify various types of somatic mosaicism associated with AD, including clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (Aim 1a), mosaic chromosomal alterations (Aim 1b), mosaic loss of chromosome Y (Aim 1c), and heteroplasmic mitochondrial mutations (Aim 1d).
Aim 2: Once putative functional somatic variants are identified, we will conduct differential expression analyses using bulk or single-cell RNA-sequencing data, along with brain, cerebrospinal fluid or plasma proteomic data by comparing somatic mutation carriers to matched controls.
Aim 3: To validate somatic variants, we will use relevant assays on brain tissues from mutation carriers. Along with investigators at the ADRC, we will conduct in vitro and/or in vivo functional experiments to determine the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the identified somatic variants.
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Investigator: Oskar Hansson
Project Title: Screening for early Alzheimer disease by plasma p-tau217 versus CSF or PET methods
Date: April 2, 2024 at 2:17 am
Request ID: D2413
Aim 1: Characterize asymptomatic AD individuals identified by p-tau217 versus those who are not identified by plasma p-tau217
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Investigator: Ying Hwey Nai
Project Title: Brain Segmentation of PET images without Structural Images (BSPwSI)
Date: March 26, 2024 at 11:00 am
Request ID: D2412
Aim 1: Use DL to segment ROIs in brain PET images of both human and nonhuman primates (NHP)
Aim 2: To develop a PET-based image processing pipeline in MIR
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