Albensi, Benedict
University of Manitoba
Canada
Basic and Patient-Oriented Dementia Research: Linking Novel Methods for Early Stage Detection with Understanding Pathological Mechanisms in Dementia
Research Manitoba
166,667
01/09/2015
5
Different types of dementia often present with similar symptoms and even experts have trouble determining which type of dementia a patient has. Given this, novel diagnostic methods allowing clinicians to better distinguish amongst different types of dementias are needed. Correctly diagnosing dementia type will also be important for the future when better drugs are marketed. Also, brain energy metabolism has been suspected in recent years to play a key role in dementia, which may prove to be an important novel target for future therapeutics. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. Vascular dementia (VD) is the second most common form. The goal of this research is to develop a program that has high translational potential and impact for advancing our understanding of dementia and for improving dementia care and diagnosis. Here, I will link a novel diagnostic method for determining dementia type with the investigation of impaired brain energy metabolism in AD dementia vs. VD in early stage disease to determine how AD is different from VD. We will also test several putative neuroprotective agents as a tool and to demonstrate if these agents can be used to provide resilience against early stage dementia.