Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2011

Mentor: Dr. Hao Huang                 
Department: Advanced Imaging Research Center
Room number: NE 3.204
Mail Code: 8542
Phone number: (214) 645 - 2881
E-mail: hao.huang@utsouthwestern.edu
Project title: White matter disruption from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s disease

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 012008-005
Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects)
Patient-based research

Brief Description of Project: Alzheimer disease (AD) is a progressive brain disease. The ultimate goal of the study is to find a sensitive biomarker of white matter tract for early AD detection. The targeted unit in this study is the functional white matter tract incorporating continuous and multiple voxels rather than the individual voxel in a brain image. Conventional VBM (voxel-based-morphometry) approaches delineate the abnormality at the voxel level. However, information reflected from a single voxel of the brain image cannot be used to evaluate the clinical conditions of the patient. It is the whole white matter tracts connecting different cortical regions that have clinical importance. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed project will be the first comprehensive study to assess the longitudinal changes of white matter at the level of functional tracts. The overarching hypothesis for the proposed studies is that white matter disruption is heterogeneous and there will be a well defined sequence of white matter disruption as AD progresses. 20 persons with mild cognitive dementia (MCI), 20 with AD and 20 control subjects will be recruited from Alzheimer Disease Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Diffusion tensor images (DTI) is sensitive to the white matter structural change. With DTI of the patients, a novel automated technology recently developed by the PI’s group enables complete and statistical survey of all major white matter tracts. We will identify the white matter biomarkers by utilizing this novel and automatic assessment tool to measure the degrees of white matter tract disruption and their sensitivity to the factors of time, cognitive function and cortical atrophy. We will generate the detailed charts characterizing the effects of AD progression on structures of white matter tracts from multiple aspects. They fill the gap in AD study and can potentially be used as invaluable references for clinical diagnosis of AD. The white matter tract ranking first in all the charts may be the biomarker we look for. Specifically the three aims are: Aim 1: To examine longitudinal structural changes of the white matter tracts of MCI/AD patients. Aim 2: To identify the white matter tracts whose structural change is most sensitive to the cognitive function decline. Aim 3: To identify the white matter tracts whose structural change correlates best with cortical atrophy.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:
Brain tumor study with Gus Perez:
Evaluation of sensitivity and predictability of full diffusion tensor metrics from core to periphery of GBM