Clinical Core

Yale University, New Haven CT

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

SUMMARY OF THE CLINICAL CORE The over-arching goal of the Clinical Core is to provide research diagnostic evaluations and deep phenotypes for a diverse population in a multidimensional manner that accounts for clinical features, social determinants of health, and biomarker findings. We enroll participants who are followed longitudinally and tracked to autopsy to provide well-characterized subjects for the research projects conducted by ADRC investigators and collaborators. Important focuses of the Core—as for the Yale ADRC broadly—include cellular neuroscience, synaptic mechanisms, and systematic collection and storage of biospecimens. The era of mono-etiologies for mild cognitive impairment and dementia will be superseded by multi-etiology nosologies, which increasingly rely on neuroimaging and fluid biomarkers. Recent frameworks have classified patients according to the presence of β-amyloid, pathologic tau, and neurodegeneration (ATN), and will be expanded in the new Alzheimer’s Diagnostic Criteria to include markers of inflammation, vascular brain injury, and α-synuclein. The Yale ADRC Biomarker, Neuropathology, and iPSC Cores and specific Developmental Projects will develop these methods with relevance to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related disorders. In partnership with these efforts, the Clinical Core will undertake the collection of a wide range of imaging studies and fluid biomarker specimens across the full spectrum of AD cross-sectionally and during the full course of AD longitudinally. Aim 1 will maintain the Core Population through enrollment of 300 new participants on the full continuum of AD, as well as non-AD dementias and normal controls. Aim 2 will promote innovative biomarker phenotyping of Core participants in coordination with the Biomarker and iPSC Cores. Aim 3 will provide clinical data and well- characterized participants for the Yale research community and external investigators. Aim 4 will enroll subjects into the Autopsy Program. Aim 5 will assist the Research Education Core in training future clinical and translational researchers in AD and related disorders. These Aims will provide investigators the ready ability to test biomarkers—once validated in symptomatic individuals—in the earliest stages of AD pathogenesis.