Hanzhang Lu
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Biomedical Engineering
The brain depends on a steady supply of blood and oxygen delivered through tiny vessels. When these small vessels fail, as in small vessel disease, older adults can lose memory and thinking ability.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
non-contrast MRI
physiological imaging
vascular cognitive impairment and dementia
- Grants
- 5 known grants, through Jan 2031
What they work on
- Develop VICTR MRI, a non-contrast method that measures venous transit time from changes in T1 relaxation, in six major brain veins including the superior sagittal sinus and internal jugular veins.
- Validate VICTR against contrast-agent bolus-tracking MRI and caffeine and carbon dioxide challenges, harmonize it across scanner vendors, and compare venous transit time in impaired versus cognitively normal older adults.
- Develop arterial spin labeling MRI for newborns under one week old, including pulse sequence design, multiple post-labeling delays, on-scanner kinetic modeling and an automatic quantification toolbox.
- Test the feasibility of neonatal ASL perfusion MRI in newborns with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.
- Test whether oxygen extraction fraction (OEF), measured by a 90-second MRI scan, relates to small vessel damage, cognition and diagnosis in a VCID-enriched cohort, and whether baseline OEF predicts 30-month decline.
- Measure BBB permeability to water, gadolinium and albumin in 125 older adults and relate it over 30 months to amyloid, tau, small vessel disease and inflammation, then validate the findings in rodent models.
- Enroll 220 diverse adults with cognitive complaints in the multi-site MarkVCID consortium to validate imaging and fluid biomarkers, and lead validation of cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) MRI if it is selected.
More about the research
The same is true when the blood-brain barrier (BBB), the protective lining that controls what passes from blood into brain tissue, breaks down. Newborns face a different risk, because injuries that disrupt brain blood supply can be devastating early in life. These projects develop MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) methods that measure brain blood flow, oxygen use and vessel function without injected tracers. They then apply them to vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID), Alzheimer's disease and newborn brain injury.
Why it matters
VCID is the second leading cause of cognitive decline in older adults, yet few measures can track vessel health or serve as clinical trial endpoints. Validated MRI markers of venous function, oxygen use, BBB leakage and vessel reactivity could help diagnose vascular dementia, sort mixed dementia cases and monitor treatments. Turnkey perfusion MRI for newborns could help clinicians assess babies with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, perinatal stroke or congenital heart disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
MR imaging of venous transit time in vascular cognitive impairment and dementia
NIH · Feb 2026 – Jan 2031
High-fidelity brain perfusion MRI in newborns less than one week of age
NIH · Aug 2025 – Jun 2029
Physiological imaging markers in vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID)
NIH · Dec 2023 – Nov 2028
Closest labs
Peiying Liu
University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD·Biomedical Engineering
Develop normalized cerebrovascular reactivity (nCVR) MRI, which uses oxygen-breathing responses to correct CO2-breathing responses. Test whether it is more reproducible and better at detecting reduced reactivity than standard BOLD-based CVR.
Brian Gold
University of Kentucky, KY·Neuroscience
Test whether low blood-brain barrier water exchange, measured with the new DW-ASL MRI sequence, predicts growth of white matter hyperintensities over about 3 years in healthy older adults.
Arvind Caprihan
University of New Mexico, NM·Neuroscience
Provide advanced MRI to Alzheimer's center studies, including blood-brain barrier permeability, quantitative T1 and T2 mapping, and cerebrovascular reactivity, alongside the standard SCAN dementia imaging protocol.
The school
Johns Hopkins University: 100 labs on PI Pages, $4.1B a year on research, 622 research doctorates a year.
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