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Excited to #Livetweet Dr. Keenan Walker's @KnowNeuropsych talk today on inflammation and immune functioning in #Alzheimers disease. Hope to see you all there!
peripheral #inflammation is a likely contributor to #neuroinflammation
typically inflammation is a helpful and adaptive response; however, systemic inflammation can occur outside an illness
In fact, over 60% of #Alzheimers genetic risk is related to genetic expression of #brain immune cells
I love a good chart distilling complex ideas. Here you get a sense of the multiple routes leading to neuroinflammation.
Another beautiful figure from Dr. Walker's research in @AgingJrnl to show the hypothetic mechanism in which systemic inflammation can contribute to neurodegeneration.
Brain regions vulnerable to #AD pathology are strongly associated with midlife systemic inflammation (even after adjusting for confounding variables).
In a longitudinal analysis of 12k people, higher midlife systemic inflammation was also associated with cognitive decline 20 years later. https://n.neurology.org/content/92/11/e1256.abstract
Correction: *Global Cognition.* But more specifically, the highest effects are seen on tests of memory.
Published this year! Peripheral inflammatory makers were associated with the default mode and dorsal attention aetworks in the BIOCARD cohort. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S088915911931061X
What about acute inflammatory events that are known to increased risk for cognitive impairment, dementia, and delirium?
#Protiomics! New technology allows analysis of 5000 proteins to help understand the plasma proteomic markers associated with dementia risk.
Dr. Walker is killing it with the amazing figures. Not showing his beautiful volcano plot because it is under review, but it helps visualize 38 key proteins in midlife that were associated with dementia risk. With replication analysis, at least half appear causal.
And then replicated again!
Also can't talk about genetics without mendelian randomization analysis (which helps deal with cohort effects and reverse causation). This showed a causal role of SVEP1 and ANTXR2 in #AD. https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.3314
Path analysis showed dementia risk associations with four main protein networks implicated in lipid/cholesterol metabolism, vascular function, inflammation, and innate immune response.
Of all protein networks, immune function is most associated with dementia risk (including microglial pathogen phagocytosis).
Sidebar. The amount of hot off the press research in this presentation is 
. #researchgoals
. #researchgoals
Amazingly clear summary of very complex research! What a phenomenal presentaiton.
ALSO, if you are looking for a #postdoc position in #Alzheimers #research, the brilliant Dr. Walker is recruiting. @Div40ANST @Div40ECNPC @APAGradStudents #gradschool #MedTwitter #AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter
