Early brain functional changes in the Alzheimer’s disease continuum

The PhD project focuses on gaining a better understanding of the first brain functional changes occurring during the preclinical and prodromal stage of the AD continuum. To this aim will select participants from the deeply characterized cohort of the Swedish BioFINDER study and take advantage of the ultra-high field facility present at Lund university for conducting task-based function MRI (fMRI) studies for investigating early signs of functional network disfunction and their association with hallmarks of AD pathology such as amyloid-beta and tau accumulation. Particular emphasis will be given to the integration of multiple modalities including structural MRI, PET imaging and fluid markers with fMRI data in order to develop a more comprehensive picture of the main drivers of early brain functional changes. This project aims to extend our knowledge of disease mechanism and, potentially, to pave the way to a new generation of imaging biomarkers for early detection and monitoring of disease progression.