LOWELL — The National Institutes of Health has awarded $2.7 million to a UMass Lowell researcher studying how Alzheimer’s disease evolves.
Joyita Dutta, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, will use the grant from the NIH’s National Institute on Aging to develop models that predict the progression of tau tangles, primary markers of Alzheimer’s disease, in the brain.
Dutta, who directs UMass Lowell’s Biomedical Imaging and Data Science Laboratory, is the researcher for the five-year grant. She will look at the disease from a network perspective, viewing the interconnections between the regions of the brain.
She will use machine learning and artificial intelligence tools to build models from existing patient imaging data that is available from the Harvard Aging Brain Study and the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. The AI tools will be applied to tau measures obtained from positron emission tomography scans and structural connectivity information obtained from diffusion tensor imaging scans to make personalized predictions of future tau buildup.
While tau is an important protein that helps stabilize the brain’s nerve cells, in cases of Alzheimer’s, an abnormal form of tau builds up inside the nerve cells and evolves into tangles.
“Our approach is data-driven,” she said. “There are a lot of cool AI tools we can use that we didn’t have five to 10 years back.”
While the causes of Alzheimer’s are not fully understood, the number of people affected by the disease continues to grow. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2020, as many as 5.8 million Americans were living with Alzheimer’s. That number is projected to rise to 14 million by 2060.
There is currently no known cure for the disease, but research indicates that early diagnosis is key to treating it.
“Scientists know that people with Alzheimer’s experience latent changes in the brain before clinical signs of the disease like memory loss manifest,” Dutta said.
Imaging can help document changes in the brain and be used to help predict future risks for cognitive decline.
“Alzheimer’s disease has a slow progression that needs to be tracked over time,” Dutta said.
Dutta holds faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. The grant was awarded to her through Mass General.
Dutta has won previous NIH funding for Alzheimer’s research that focused on imaging and sleep metrics as a tool for diagnosing the disease.
The latest research project will offer hands-on experience to several graduate students in the disciplines of electrical and computer engineering, biomedical engineering and physics. It will also support a full-time postdoctoral scholar.
“It will be a great opportunity for training the next generation of Alzheimer’s researchers,” she said.