Ai-Ling Lin
University of Missouri-Columbia, MO·Neuroscience
The trillions of microbes in the gut may influence how Alzheimer's disease (AD) develops in the brain. Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
Alzheimer's disease
dementia
gut-brain axis
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Dec 2030
What they work on
- Identify how the severity of gut dysbiosis tracks over time with regional amyloid, tau and neurodegeneration markers and cognition in Alzheimer's patients and healthy controls, using PET, 7 Tesla MRI, gut microbiome sequencing and cognitive testing.
- Test whether fecal microbiome transplants from Alzheimer's patients reproduce dysbiosis in young 3xTg-AD mice and accelerate amyloid, tau, neuroinflammation and cognitive decline, measured by 7T MRI, brain staining and biochemical assays.
- Reveal whether removing inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), an enzyme that drives inflammation, lessens dysbiosis-driven brain pathology, using a new iNOS knockout 3xTg-AD mouse and transcriptomic profiling of inflammatory genes.
- Determine whether the prebiotic fiber inulin, alone or combined with iNOS loss, restores gut microbial balance and rescues brain pathology and cognition in mice given Alzheimer's patient microbiomes.
More about the research
It is defined by three hallmarks: amyloid plaques (A), tau tangles inside neurons (T), and neurodegeneration, or the loss of brain tissue (N). Together these form the A/T/N framework. People with AD often show dysbiosis, a badly unbalanced gut microbial community, along with brain inflammation. It is still unknown whether dysbiosis actually drives brain damage, how specific microbes relate to changes in particular brain regions, or whether the process can be slowed.
Why it matters
Alzheimer's disease has no disease-modifying cure, and evidence suggests gut microbial imbalance may contribute to brain inflammation and neurodegeneration. By testing whether this imbalance accelerates disease, and whether blocking iNOS or adding dietary inulin can counter it, this work could point toward gut-targeted strategies to lower Alzheimer's risk. Because these tools already exist for people, they could inform future clinical trials.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jens H Jensen
Medical University of South Carolina, SC·Neuroscience
Determine whether diffusional kurtosis imaging (DKI), an MRI method that measures water movement in tissue, can track brain microstructure changes in 3xTg-AD mice treated with the drug P021 from 2 to 18 months of age.
Qolamreza Ray Razlighi
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, NY·Neuroscience
Develop the Tau Progression Index (TPI), a single prognostic score that combines each person's MRI-based structural and functional brain connectivity with the regional patterns of amyloid-beta and tau seen on PET scans.
Qingjie Li
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, TX·Physiology
Test whether transplanting a mouse's own banked youthful gut microbiome into mature adult mice delays physiological and molecular aging, combining heart, liver and cognitive function tests with organ transcriptomics and microbiome profiling.
The school
University of Missouri-Columbia: 21 labs on PI Pages, $509M a year on research, 260 research doctorates a year.
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