$2.5M grant to study Alzheimer’s and TBI links at Barrow Institute

Researchers at Phoenix’s Barrow Neurological Institute have received a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to study possible links between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Chia-Ling Phuah, Co-Director of the Barrow Neuro Analytics Center, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the grant and what it could do for the future of Alzheimer’s disease prevention.

“What many people may not realize is that a lot of these individuals, who experience brain injury,” Dr. Phuah said. “…they’re also at greater risk of developing alzheimer’s disease later in life…it’s not fully understood yet, why this happens or how this happens.”

The four-year study will examine whether a genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease can help predict cognitive outcomes of individuals who experience a TBI, and they will attempt to identify factors that may protect TBI patients from changes to their mental abilities. The intent is to see whether researchers can find more information or better biomarkers to predict who is most at risk of cognitive difficulties. The belief is that if researchers can identify who is most at risk, they could devise treatments to prevent that.

A study from Barrow’s website shows some of the methods used to conduct the research. The study will use a polygenic risk score to assess how genetic factors might predict Alzheimer’s risk and how TBI affects cognitive recovery. Researchers will then analyze data from two large TBI and Alzheimer’s cohorts to understand the genetic links between the conditions.

“Essentially we are trying to leverage some big data, we are gonna harness big data to understand more about disease process,” Dr. Phuah said. “What the study is going to be is, it’s going to be one of the largest one to date, looking at the relationship between traumatic brain injury and alzheimer’s disease.”

TBI patients at Barrow will be monitored for two years to identify genetic and protein markers that could help improve recovery.