James Reilly
Temple University, PA·Psychology
Dementia is a growing public health crisis, and catching it early is a key goal. In the United States, racial and socioeconomic barriers limit dementia care.
- Fields
Psychology
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
dementia
Alzheimer's disease
primary progressive aphasia
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2029
What they work on
- Detect emerging semantic deficits, loss of word and concept knowledge, in naturalistic narrative language samples from a cohort of older African American adults at elevated risk for dementia.
- Derive age-based norms for narrative language content and for pupil dilation dynamics, such as dilation speed, measured while participants produce and perceive language.
- Track the relationship between changes in executive functioning and semantic knowledge over five years in this underserved cohort.
- Disseminate tools for detecting language changes that may signal Alzheimer's disease onset, along with a database of pupil function across tasks, light reflexes and rest.
More about the research
Many standard cognitive tests also miss early signs of dementia in under-represented minority groups. This project aims to find subtle early warning signs in everyday speech and in the body's responses during language use, in older African American adults.
Why it matters
Many cognitive tests do not accurately screen for dementia in African American and other under-represented older adults, who also face barriers to care. Tools that detect subtle changes in everyday speech and pupil responses could help clinicians identify Alzheimer's disease and related disorders earlier in an underserved, high-risk population. The shared pupil database could support further research.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Maya Henry
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Neuroscience
Evaluate whether Multi-PA telerehabilitation, which combines restorative language therapy, compensatory strategies and care-partner training, is feasible and acceptable in a randomized pilot of 30 people with PPA and 30 care partners.
Matthew Leonard
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Neuroscience
Determine how arousal systems that release noradrenaline, acetylcholine and dopamine affect cortical neurons during the pre-sound, sound-encoding and feedback phases of a sound-learning task in mice.
Matthew D Grilli
University of Arizona, AZ·Neuroscience
Test whether smartphone-tracked autobiographical thoughts in clinically normal older adults relate to plasma Alzheimer's biomarkers and to resting-state connectivity of the default network, brain regions targeted early in the disease.
The school
Temple University: 22 labs on PI Pages, $315M a year on research, 238 research doctorates a year.
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