Jaime Ramos-Cejudo
New York University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Blood vessels in the brain and the immune cells circulating through them may both help set the stage for dementia, but how they interact is unclear. A vascular contribution to Alzheimer's disease has been discussed since the 1960s, yet it is hard to pin down because cerebrovascular disease, damage to brain blood vessels, so often coexists with Alzheimer's pathology.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
Alzheimer's disease
dementia
cerebrovascular disease
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2030
What they work on
- Test whether circulating markers of vascular and immune dysfunction, including platelet aggregation, neutrophil activity and blood proteomic profiles, are associated with MRI measures of cerebrovascular burden in the Framingham Heart Study and the cardiovascular-risk-enriched ARISE-DP cohort.
- Relate these platelet, neutrophil and proteomic markers to PET imaging of amyloid and tau deposits, and test whether cerebrovascular burden and amyloid positivity interact in shaping Alzheimer's pathology.
- Determine whether baseline vascular and inflammatory markers predict later cognitive decline and progression of blood Alzheimer's biomarkers, specifically the phosphorylated tau forms p-tau181 and p-tau217.
- Integrate biofluid and imaging data across both cohorts to identify candidate biological mediators linking vascular and immune dysfunction to dementia progression.
More about the research
Recent work suggests that vessel dysfunction and inflammation may act together to push the disease forward.
Why it matters
Alzheimer's disease and related dementias still have unclear biological causes and few disease-modifying treatments. Linking easily measured blood markers of clotting and inflammation to brain imaging and later cognitive decline could reveal new mediators and therapeutic targets, and may help identify people at risk, including those in populations with a high prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors who are often underrepresented in dementia research.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jonathan McConathy
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Neuroscience
Acquire amyloid-PET and tau-PET scans, which detect hallmark Alzheimer's protein deposits, and MRI scans from UAB Alzheimer's Disease Research Center participants using a simultaneous PET/MRI system.
Rhoda Au
Boston University, MA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Collect digital cognitive metrics (dCog) from a digital recorder, digital pen and smartphone apps in the BU ADRC cohort, and compare people who are positive versus negative for the amyloid-tau-neurodegeneration (A/T/N) signature.
Ling Wu
North Carolina Central University, NC·Neuroscience
Validate newly discovered phosphorylated tau (p-tau) markers for early Alzheimer's diagnosis, including distinguishing mild cognitive impairment from normal cognition, in patient plasma and cerebrospinal fluid.
The school
New York University: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 540 research doctorates a year.
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