Arizona Researchers Receive $4 million NIH Grant to Continue Their Brain Imaging Study of Persons at Risk for Alzheimer's Disease
Grant goes to Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center and includes several Arizona institutions.
PHOENIX (August 15, 2003) - During the past 5 years, Arizona researchers have been using imaging techniques to track brain changes before the onset of memory and thinking problems in people who carry a common susceptibility gene for Alzheimer's disease. In recognition of the study's pioneering contributions and growing importance, the investigators have received a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant of nearly $1 million a year to extend their research through June of 2007.
The study uses medical imaging techniques, known as PET and MRI, to track declines in brain activity and brain size which precede memory and thinking difficulties in late middle aged people with two copies, one copy, and no copies of the "APOE4 gene," which is found in about one out of four people and accounts for many cases of Alzheimer's disease later in life. In studies published in several of the world's leading medical and scientific journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers discovered characteristic and progressive brain changes in carriers of this susceptibility gene. In the process, they developed a new way to evaluate the ability drugs to prevent Alzheimer's disease without having to study thousands of research volunteers or wait many years to determine whether or when they develop memory and thinking problems.
"My colleagues and I are extremely grateful to the NIMH, the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the state of Arizona, and our participating institutions for supporting this research effort and our multi-institutional research program," says Dr. Eric Reiman, the study's principal investigator and a brain imaging researcher and psychiatrist at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center. "We're extremely excited about the opportunity to discover a way to prevent Alzheimer's disease without losing a generation along the way."
This grant, which was awarded to Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, capitalizes on the resources of several institutions in the Arizona Alzheimer's Disease Consortium (ADC): the internationally known PET research program at Banner Good Samaritan, the Psychiatry Departments at Banner and the University of Arizona, the Neurology Department at the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, and the Psychology Department at Arizona State University. In addition to his roles at Banner Good Samaritan, Dr. Reiman, is Director of the Arizona ADC, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona, and Clinical Director of Neurogenomics at the Translational Genomic Research Institute (TGen). His principal collaborators include Drs. Richard Caselli, Professor and Chairman of Neurology at Mayo, Kewei Chen, a PET biomathematician at Banner Good Samaritan, and Gene Alexander, an Associate Professor of Psychology at ASU.
The Arizona ADC is a statewide laboratory without walls, which includes the state-supported Arizona Alzheimer's Research Center and the NIH-sponsored Arizona Alzheimer's Disease Core Center. The ADC includes researchers from 8 of the state's leading biomedical research institutions and is dedicated to the scientific understanding, early detection, and prevention of Alzheimer's disease.
