Rola Ismail will defend her PhD thesis:

Study of the temporal and spatial relationships between neuroinflammation, beta-amyloid and tau aggregation in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease – a longitudinal PET-study

Date: Monday January 6th 2020

Time: 14:00

Place: Aarhus University Hospital, Palle Juul Jensens Boulevard 165, Indgang J, Auditorium J116-113, 8200 Aarhus N

Summary:

Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible neurodegenrative disorder, characterized by progressive cognitive and functional impairment and deposition of amyloid and tau in the brain. Neuroinflammation plays an important, but yet not fully clear role in the trajectoy of the disease pathology. Currently, no effective disease modifying treatments are available. More recently, increasing interest in the pathological role of inflammation as a target for treatment to halt progression has been seen.

The aim of this thesis was to use PET imaging to examine the longitudinal interrelationships beteween Alzheimer's disease pathologies in a cohort of mild cognitive impairment cases.

We found an association beteween brain inflammation levels and amyloid load in the early MCI and between inflammation and tau in the later MCI supporting the view that inflammation has a biphasic trajectory in early Alzheimer's diease which may comprise an early protective and a later cidal phase. We also found that cognitive decline was associated with levels of amyloid, tau and inflammation in different areas of the brain at different stages of the disease.    

Supervisor: 

Professor David J. Brooks

Assessment committee: 

Chairman: Professor Leif Østergaard, CFIN, Aarhus Universitet

Examiners: Professor Oskar Hansson, Clinical Memory Research Unit, Lund Universitet, Sverige.

Professor Steen Hasselbalch, Danish Dementia Research Centre, Rigshospital, Denmark.

All are welcome

For more information, please contact PhD student Rola Ismail, email: rola.ismail@clin.au.dk.