Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center
The '''University Alzheimer's Center''' (RADC)[1] is a research center located in Rush University Medical Center. The Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center is one of 29 Alzheimer’s centers in the U.S. designated and funded by the National Institute on Aging.[2]
The RADC is a leader in research into the causes and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.[3] One of its earliest research projects was the Religious Orders Study.[4] One of the influences on the development of the Religious Orders Study was the Nun Study founded by Dr. David Snowdon. The Religious Orders Study is a 25-year-long study utilizing volunteers in the religious community, including priests, nuns, and brothers, who agreed to donate their brains to the RADC after they died, providing doctors with an opportunity to look for postmortem correlations between lifestyle and Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists at the RADC use the brains to study a broad range of factors relating to Alzheimer's disease and other common diseases of age, and share tissue samples from those brains, as well as data, with other medical institutions around the country.[5]
The RADC's Memory and Aging Project (MAP) followed the Religious Orders Study in 1997, and used volunteers from the community. The study design is similar to the Religious Orders Study and enrolls volunteers without dementia who agree to annual clinical evaluation and organ donation.[6]
Both studies are ongoing, and have created research opportunities at Rush University, including the Minority Aging Research Study (MARS), which is a study of decline in cognitive function and risk of Alzheimer’s disease in older African Americans, with brain donation after death added as an optional component,[7] the Latino CORE study, relating to older Latino Adults,[8] and a study newly-funded by NIA to study Alzheimer's disease in Brazil.[9]
References
- ^ "Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center". Rush University Medical Center.
- ^ National Institute on Aging division of National Institutes of Health federally funded alzheimer's centers 2016. https://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/alzheimers-disease-research-centers
- ^ Alzheimer’s Disease Illinois State Plan 2014-2017 Report and Recommendations January 2014 http://www.dph.illinois.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ad-plan-2014-050316.pdf
- ^ Nuns donate their brains to Alzheimer's research, Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2010, John Biemer, Special to the Chicago Tribune http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/22/nation/la-na-nuns-brains-20100822.
- ^ Springen, Karen (March 8, 2011). "Rush Medical Center Docs Seek to Solve Alzheimer's Mystery". Chicago Magazine.
- ^ "Overview and Findings from the Rush Memory and Aging Project". Current Alzheimer Research. 9 (6): 646–663. doi:10.2174/156720512801322663. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
- ^ The Minority Aging Research Study: Ongoing Efforts to Obtain Brain Donation in African Americans without Dementia, Curr Alzheimer Res. 2012 Jul 1; 9(6): 734–745, Lisa L. Barnes, et al,
- ^ Contemp Clin Trials. 2014 Jul; 38(2): 397–408. B.A.I.L.A. - A Latin dance randomized controlled trial for older Spanish-speaking Latinos: Rationale, design, and methods, David X. Marquez, PhD, et al, https://www.rush.edu/services-conditions/alzheimers-disease-center/radc-research/latino-core-study-rush-alzheimers,
- ^ Association of APOE with tau-tangle pathology with and without β-amyloid, Farfel JM, et al. Neurobiol Aging, 2016, Department of Geriatrics, University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26481403
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