This Bass Connections project, which is part of an ongoing multiyear study, used imaging technology along with analysis of neuropathology and behavior to examine how genetics and environment modify risk for Alzheimer’s disease in a female mouse model. The team’s work has demonstrated that exercise mitigates cognitive decline in female mouse models. The project team compared mice with human proteins that develop symptoms of Alzheimer’s and with human proteins that do not. Along with the laboratory-based and data-driven empirical work, the team explored how inherent characteristics and acquired life experiences contribute to health and disease. The team also used imaging and visualization tools to create a network analysis that integrates MRI and behavioral data.

The team developed methods to visualize wheel running data to study both individual mice and group data, reconstructed images from signal processing acquisitions, started analyzing statistical differences in sedentary and exercised mice, and produced a protocol for a study to examine network activation to odors.

By using MRI data, the team hopes to identify biomarkers for faster diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Timing

Fall 2019 – Summer 2020

See related teams, Exercise Therapy and Brain Networks: Implications for Alzheimer’s Disease (2020-2021) and Exercise Therapy and Brain Networks: Implications for Alzheimer’s Disease and Aging (2018-2019).

Image: Jogging on a bright November morning, by Ed Yourdon, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0