Michael Harms
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Neuroscience
Why do some people's brains and thinking stay strong into very old age while others decline? And when in adult life do the changes linked to Alzheimer's disease begin?
- Fields
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
Psychology
- Topics
brain aging
Alzheimer's disease
dementia
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Implement matched 3-tesla MRI scanning across four sites at two time points about two years apart in typically aging adults aged 36 to 100+, recruited to reflect the US population by sex, race, ethnicity and household income.
- Run 7-tesla magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a scan that measures brain chemicals, at up to three sites to profile how brain chemistry changes across adulthood and how it may relate to Alzheimer's risk factors.
- Collect neuropsychological, behavioral, physiological and lifestyle data and biological samples consistently across four sites, adding new measures of stress, social and community engagement, and adversity.
- Add objective measures of sleep quality and physical activity from wearable devices for returning participants in the Human Connectome Project-Aging cohort, alongside brain imaging and cognitive testing.
More about the research
Answering these questions means following the same people over many years and measuring their brains alongside their health, habits and life circumstances. This work runs the data-collection arm of the Aging Adult Brain Connectome (AABC). The AABC is a multi-site study built on the Human Connectome Project-Aging cohort of typically aging adults. It aims to gather up to 10 years of data per person for 1,000 participants, covering the full span of aging.
Why it matters
Alzheimer's disease and related dementias affect many older adults, and early warning signs are hard to detect. A long-term dataset linking brain scans, brain chemistry, cognition, lifestyle and biological samples in typically aging adults could help researchers identify early markers and behaviors tied to higher dementia risk, as well as factors linked to resilience. This could guide future work on earlier detection and prevention.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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Washington University in St Louis, MO·Neuroscience
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University of Minnesota, MN·Neuroscience
Test whether visual snow arises from excess spontaneous neural activity in visual brain areas by comparing adaptation-based perception tests in people with visual snow syndrome and normally sighted controls.
Minjie Wu
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Neuroscience
Test whether women show faster cerebrovascular aging than men. Use 7T MRI measures of blood-brain barrier function, small artery and vein shape (VesselMapper, BrainVein) and white matter hyperintensities.
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
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