Greicius Lab
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=greicius+md[AUTHOR]
Research Interests
The research of Dr. Greicius involves the use of functional MRI in conjunction with other imaging methods to detect and characterize brain networks in healthy adults and patients with neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. The main research objective is to develop novel imaging biomarkers that will enhance the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders.
Conventional MRI scanning is not able to able to confirm whether a patient has dementia or what kind of dementia the patient might have. Other forms of imaging are little better at this job. What Greicius has done is to pioneer a new form of imaging called "resting state functional MRI." Using this form of imaging, he is able to look at the activity of brain circuits when the brain is not working on a specific task. At these times, the brain may be doing important housekeeping tasks like organizing short term memories and transferring some to long term storage. Using resting state functional MRI, Greicius has found previously unknown networks that may perform such tasks and appear critical for memory formation. Furthermore, he has found that these newly discovered memory networks decay early in Alzheimer's disease. Ongoing research may ultimately offer a useful diagnostic imaging technique for Alzheimer's and perhaps other memory disorders.
