A team of researchers led by Penn Medicine will investigate the link between traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) over the next five years with a $10 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Using an extensive tissue bank including over 1,000 samples, the researchers aim to uncover the underlying biological mechanisms of TBI-related neurodegeneration (TReND) from a variety of brain injury types. Researchers hope that by understanding TReND, they might gain further insight into how ADRD develops, and inform the development of better preventative measures and treatments.
"We know that brain injuries increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, and they provide a unique opportunity to study neurodegeneration, as the imaging and cognitive testing required for their diagnosis provide a 'baseline' to compare to over time," said co-Principal Investigator, Douglas H. Smith, MD, director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair and a professor of Neurosurgery at Penn. "By studying the effects of injuries over time, we hope to understand what happens biologically and structurally to the brain after injury that leads to neurodegeneration and hope that those findings also tell us how ADRD develop in general, even in individuals without a previous brain injury.
" This grant will support new initiative called Transdisciplinary Research Accelerating Neuropathology Studies and Fac.