Home Department: Psychology
Mentor: Anthony Wagner (Psychology)

“Associations Between Cortical Thickness and Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarkers in Cognitively Unimpaired Older Adults”

The integrity of the locus coeruleus (LC) is a possible preclinical biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease. The proposed project will utilize previously collected high-resolution structural MRI data to analyze the LC, identify variability in older adults‚ LC integrity, and examine the relationship between LC integrity and cognitive decline. Jacqueline is learning how to manually delineate the LC from the structural MRI (N=180 older adults at 3T, N=160 older adults at 7T), and conduct volumetric analyses to investigate the relationship between LC integrity, molecular biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease (CSF amyloid beta and tau), and cognitive decline in healthy older adults.