Congratulations to Martin Dahl for receiving a BrightFocus fellowship for his project entitled “Fingerprinting the impact of declining neuromodulation on late-life memory.”
Emerging postmortem research indicates that neuromodulatory centers in the brainstem show Alzheimer’s disease (AD)-associated neuropathological changes long before cortical regions. Uncovering these early brainstem markers could not only provide insights into preventative measures but also foster the prospect of developing interventions that could significantly alter the trajectory of this disease. This project uses innovative brainstem imaging techniques to track individual changes in regions of the brain that are affected earliest by AD and linking these to the accumulation of pathology and later memory loss, using a multimodal, dense longitudinal design. This investigation helps advance our understanding of the mechanistic sequence of neural events leading to memory decline, identify early biomarkers, and contribute to our quest to mitigate AD’s impact.
BrightFocus supports research seeking to discover cures for Alzheimer’s disease, macular degeneration and glaucoma.