Researcher Colin Groot of Alzheimer Center Amsterdam and the department of Neurology at Amsterdam UMC has been awarded an ERC starting grant of 2,5 million euro. With this grant he will investigate how reliable biomarkers can be for detecting and tracking brain diseases that cause dementia.
In the Netherlands, 320 thousend people have dementia, and 1 in 5 people will deal with dementia in their life. Dementia is a collective term for differing symptoms that can arise as a result of brain disease. In these brain diseases harmful proteins often accumulate.
Researchers can measure features of these disease processes with biomarkers. This can be done for example through blood, spinal fluid or imaging of the brain. The role of biomarkers is increasing in detecting and tracking brain diseases that can cause dementia. However, we do not know well enough how good these measurements can represent what is actually happening in the brain.
Comparing biomarkers with brain tissue
Together with his research group, Groot will investigate how different biomarkers relate to what is actually happening and changing in the brain. For this research project, he will collaborate with an unique group of patients that will undergo, seperately from this research project, the euthanasia process.
With these participants, biomarkers and other measurements can be performed shortly before death. After death the brain will be investigated extensively. This way, the measurements performed prior to death can be directly compared to the presence and spread of the disease processes in the brain.
Different disease processes
The research will investigate different disorders in the brain, including disorders related to abnormalities of the proteins tau, α-synucleïn and TDP-43. Additionally, Groot will investigate the combination of different disease processes, because these diseases often occur simultaneously in one person.
By comparing biomarkers directly to brain changes, Groot and his group will get a better understanding of what these biomarker measurements exactly demonstrate. This can contribute to a reliable application of biomarkers for the diagnosis and progenosis of dementia. Additionally, this knowledge will help in the development and evaluation of new treatments for brain diseases that cause dementia.