April 20, 2023
Dear UW ADRC research community,
The UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center is interested in expanding its research focus on resilience in neurodegenerative disease, i.e. the phenomenon whereby some individuals demonstrate better cognition, daily function, and possibly neurophysiologic function than would be expected for their measured burden of disease. This is a theme that touches on a number of timely lines of research: multimorbidity and biomarkers thereof, prevention of dementia with early medical or nonpharmacologic intervention, the biological basis of brain health, ADRD in less advantaged populations, advances in brain imaging, and more.
Going forward, we are creating a monthly “Resilience Working Group” meeting to bring together a critical mass of Center leaders and interested junior investigators to help articulate and advance this theme at UW. Our starting point is that we are expecting to work with quantitative and biologically-based measures of resilience, and living human participants. We are also interested in investigations rooted in our outstanding autopsy programs and biorepository.
We envision initial goals of this group to be:
- Inventory of local research resources applicable to this theme
- Review/journal club current concepts in measurement of resilience
- Identification and inclusion of junior investigators interested in making this line of research their own, to assist them in creatively developing their ideas and obtaining regular feedback
- Input to ADRC renewal effort next year
The group is to be led initially by Drs. Grabowski (imaging, clinical ADRD), Larson (population-based research, lifecourse factors in ADRD), and Suchy-Dicey (psychological resilience, biomarkers, epidemiology and methods). Other established investigators are welcome to join.
We especially are interested identifying junior investigators who would like be part of this group. Please cascade this to any interested individuals or labs.
We expect a kickoff meeting next month (May). An email to annikn@uw.edu indicating your interest in the group, field of study, and rank/department would be welcome as we plan this first meeting.
Thank you for your interest!
Tom Grabowski MD
Eric B. Larson MD, MPH
Astrid Suchy-Dicey PhD