(Event cancelled)

Heidi Jacobs, PhD
Associate Professor of Radiology 
Massachusetts General Hospital 

Evaluating the Locus Coeruleus as Early Marker of Alzheimer's Disease: Linking Neuropathology to Neuroimaging

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by a long asymptomatic stage during which the two pathologic hallmarks, beta-amyloid and tau depositions, accumulate, lead to neurodegeneration and the manifestation of clinical symptoms. Being able to effectively delay disease progression will require early intervention, before irreversible damage has occurred. To realize more success in clinical trials the critical barrier that needs to be resolved is to find a biomarker that does not measure end-stage pathology, but precedes Aβ and early tau pathology and can predict who is expected to show an increase in AD pathology and a decrease in cognition over the following years. Autopsy reports of deposition of hyperphosphorylated tau pathology in the locus coeruleus early in adulthood and before cortical involvement indicate that the locus coeruleus may be a promising marker. During this talk, I will provide evidence from structural and functional in vivo imaging of the locus coeruleus supporting locus coeruleus imaging as potential marker and discuss the remaining knowledge gaps.

Host Information: Hengda He ([email protected]) - Sajda Lab 

The Columbia Neuroscience Seminar series is a collaborative effort of Columbia's Zuckerman Institute, the Department of Neuroscience, the Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior and the Columbia Translational Neuroscience Initiative, and with support from the Kavli Institute for Brain Science.