Posts by Reisa A. Sperling, MD
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Black People Have Faster Cognitive Decline Than Whites Irrespective of Socioeconomic Status, Vascular Risk and Brain Pathology
Meaningful progress toward early detection, diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease must include better understanding of race-based differences in cognitive decline.
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Inability to Self-Monitor Memory May Be Preclinical Sign of Alzheimer's Disease
In cognitively intact older adults, impaired metamemory—the ability to monitor one's memory accurately and engage in compensatory strategies when necessary—was linked to greater deposition of tau in brain regions that are vulnerable to pathologic changes in early Alzheimer's disease.
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Patterns of Neural Network Degradation Differ in Alzheimer's Disease and Normal Aging
Functional MRI may someday be able to distinguish the neurodegenerative changes related to early Alzheimer's disease from those of normal aging.
Biography
I am a board certified neurologist who has been working in aging and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) imaging research for 15 years. My laboratory is focused on elucidating the neural underpinnings of memory loss in early Alzheimer's disease (AD) and developing neuroimaging markers of progression in preclinical and prodromal stages of AD. My work includes multiple imaging modalities including functional and structural MRI and PET amyloid imaging. I serve as the Director of the Neuroimaging Program at the Massachusetts Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) at Massachusetts General Hospital. I also lead the AD clinical trials program across Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. I serve on the Steering committee of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS), the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), and the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN), and have the honor of chairing the National Institute on Aging/Alzheimer's Association Workgroup on Preclinical AD.
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