Central Lateral Thalamic Circuitry Abnormalities in Traumatic Brain Injury and Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

The purpose of this grant is to understand how the circuitry associated with the central lateral thalamic nucleus (CL) plays a role in enhancing the risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) following a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Animal connectivity work shows that CL has strong connections with the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), which is heavily involved in both attention and memory. We hypothesize that the downregulation of CL in TBI leads to decreased activity in the dACC, which in turn downregulates the memory system and enhances the risk for AD. This will be tested by quantifying the connectivity strength between CL and dACC in resting-state fMRI and DTI neuroimaging data from healthy versus TBI versus AD subjects from the ADNI and DoD-ADNI databases. We will then examine whether the CL-dACC connectivity strength inversely correlates with markers of AD (performance on the Logical Memory II test, global PET-amyloid burden, and amyloid and tau levels in the cerebrospinal fluid). Thus far, per the Statement of Work for Year 1, Major Task 1 Subtask 1 has been completed: data have been downloaded from the ADNI and DoD-ADNI databases. Major Task 1 Subtask 2 is partially complete. Subject specific PHC and dACC ROIs have been defined for all subjects. Work is in progress for defining subject-specific CLROIs. Progress has been slowed because of a delay in hiring a Data Analyst to assist with tasks. We expect that the remainder of Year 1 tasks will be accomplished within three months in Year 2.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 01, 2022
Accession Number
AD1178550

Entities

People

  • Eun Young Choi

Organizations

  • Stanford University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abnormalities
  • Abstracts
  • Alzheimer Disease
  • Biomedical Research
  • Brain
  • Brain Injuries
  • Cerebral Cortex
  • Correlation Analysis
  • Databases
  • Department Of Defense
  • Diagnostic Imaging
  • Diseases And Disorders
  • Maryland
  • Medical Personnel
  • Neuroimaging
  • Professional Development
  • Students
  • Technology Transfer
  • Tomography
  • Training
  • Universities

Fields of Study

  • Medicine

Readers

  • Clinical Trial Research.
  • Neuroscience
  • Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Cognitive Aging in the Guam and Border Populations Affected by Alzheimer's Disease and Tau-Associated Dementias.