Sunnybrook Dementia Study (SDS)
Vascular Health and Aging in Dementia study (VHAD)
Language Impairment in Progressive Aphasia (LIPA)
Industry Sponsored Clinical Trials
The Sunnybrook Dementia Study (SDS - https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01800214) is a long-running study, having been continuously recruiting for more than 30 years, investigating many forms of dementia and neurodegenerative disease including Alzheimer’s Disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body disease, and cognitively normal controls. Total recruitment includes more than 1300 patients and 140 cognitively normal controls, including brain donation at autopsy of more than 180 participants. One of the main foci of the study is examining neurodegenerative disease and cerebrovascular disease, that often co-occur in real-world patient populations from community-based memory clinics, such as ours at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. These disease processes can be studied using advanced techniques such MRI, SPECT, eye-tracking, gait and balance, genetic information, and gut microbiome. Combined with comprehensive clinical and neuropsychological assessments, this valuable archive of data has helped improve earlier diagnosis and disease monitoring, which together can help work towards the development of improved biomarkers and disease-modifying therapies to treat dementia.
The Vascular Health and Aging in Dementia (VHAD) study, was a Sunnybrook study designed to investigate the relationships between brain health, as determined by advanced MRI measures of cerebrovascular burden, and neck imaging measures of carotid stenosis and thickening. More than 100 participants with moderate-to-severe white matter disease, transient ischemic attack (TIA), and mixed disease patients with Alzheimer’s disease and cerebrovascular disease, were imaged with a 3T MRI at baseline and follow-up, with detailed neck imaging at baseline for carotid artery measurements.
The Language Impairment in Progressive Aphasia study was a collaboration between Drs. Sandra Black, Elizabeth Rochon and Naida Graham, to investigate the imaging correlates of non-fluent and semantic variants of primary progressive aphasia. More than 60 participants were imaged with serial MRI over the course of several years in order to better understand the impact this disease has on the brain, examining structural and cerebrovascular changes with particular investigation into disruption of white matter pathways using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
The Language Impairment in Progressive Aphasia study was a collaboration between Drs. Sandra Black, Elizabeth Rochon and Naida Graham, to investigate the imaging correlates of non-fluent and semantic variants of primary progressive aphasia. More than 60 participants were imaged with serial MRI over the course of several years in order to better understand the impact this disease has on the brain, examining structural and cerebrovascular changes with particular investigation into disruption of white matter pathways using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).