Translational molecular imaging in Alzheimer´s disease and other neurodegenerative proteinopathies

The proposal has a translational approach using in vitro and in vivo imaging techniques to obtain a deeper understanding of the early pathological disease mechanisms and complex cascade of events leading to clinical cognitive symptoms in different neurodegenerative proteinopathies.

Our mission is to develop a multi-tracer molecular imaging (PET) paradigm focusing on understanding interactions between amyloid, tau proteins, inflammatory processes and cognition.

Questions to answer: what are the links between different regional pathological mechanisms leading to AD and other non-AD proteinopathies?

What are the mechanism(s) initiating the processes and drive the pathology? 2) Could familial forms of proteinopathies be used as models of sporadic disease? 3) What are the new tau PET tracers targeting and exactly binding to in vivo and in vitro? 4) What are the relationship between early brain inflammatory processes (astrocytosis) and tau deposition in different forms of tauopathies? 5) How can novel molecular imaging techniques used for visualizing important hallmarks of neurodegenerative disorder increasing diagnostic power and drug therapy development?

Work package (WP) WP1 is clinical studies in patients at different stages of AD, Frontotemporal dementia and other proteinpathies with a special focus on astrocytosis and tau pathology in brain.

WP2 consists of various in vitro studies characterizing tau and astrocytes PET tracers and their relevance as marker for pathology.