• Aging & dementia imaging genetics

• Specific studies

• Consciousness & Cognition

• Decision making

• Surgical fMRI

• Brain-Hand interaction

• Cognitive training

• Learning & Memory

• Parkinson's Disease

• Intervention (physical & psychological)

• COBRA

• Research facilities

Aging & dementia imaging genetics

This project is heavily focused on the Betula project, which is a longitudinal study on aging, memory, and health. Betula was in 2005 awarded status from the Swedish Science Council as a “strong research environment”, and numerous Betula publications have been generated (http://www.betula.su.se).

Key imaging findings include:
• Demonstration of a high prevalence of white matter lesions in normal aging (Söderlund et al., 2003, Cortex), and reduced white-matter integrity as measured by diffusion-tensor imaging (Salami et al., 2011).
• Demonstration of reduced frontal functional brain activity, in conjunction with an age-related reduction of frontal grey matter density (Nyberg et al., 2010, PNAS). These observations were based on longitudinal data and challenge contemporary models of age-related re-organization of brain circuits.
• The main known genetic risk factor (ApoE e4) for Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) has been related to functional brain activity in unaffected, healthy persons. Work within Betula has showed reduced parietal brain activity, in a dose-dependent manner, in ApoE e4 carriers (Lind et al., 2006, Brain).
• KIBRA has been related to episodic memory and hippocampal functional activity (Kauppi et al., 2011, J Neurosci.).

Ongoing work include an GWAS in relation to brain structure and function.

Lars Nyberg