Clinical Core: Dr. Tracy Butler (Director); Drs. Silky Pahlajani, Lisa Ravdin, Nancy Foldi
The Clinical Core of the Brain Health Imaging Institute (BHII) offers many research study clinical services. Staffed with two behavioral neurologists, two neuropsychologists, and eight coordinator-cognitive testers, BHII services include: medical, neurologic, psychiatric, and neuropsychological examinations for screening, enrollment, and overall longitudinal project management needs. Trained coordinator-testers with established interrater reliability administer standardized neuropsychological assessments, including the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) cognitive battery. Monthly consensus diagnosis meetings attended by affiliated neurologists, psychiatrists, neuroradiologists, psychologists, and other specialists provide research diagnoses for enrolled subjects. Recruitment of patient populations and healthy older controls occurs via: Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) faculty referrals, internet advertising and social media campaigns, electronic medical record review, mass community mailing and outreach, and collaboration with the Center for Health Equity.
Imaging Core: Dr. Ray Razlighi, Ph.D. (Director); Dr. Yi Li, Ph.D., Dr. Gloria Chiang, M.D.
This Core offers: image acquisition for implementing/harmonizing magnetic resonance imaging; positron emission tomography acquisition protocols for neurodegeneration and aging research; image processing capacity for processing complex imaging data.
Fluid Biomarker Core: Drs. Laura Beth McIntire, Lidia Glodzik, Mony J. de Leon (Co-Directors)
Our team has 20 years’ experience in the collection, processing, and storage of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood specimens. Currently we maintain one of the largest collections of CSF and matched plasma from aging subjects. More than 500 subjects have participated in National Institutes of Health studies resulting in over 1200 time points. The BHII maintains five -80° freezers in a repository that holds nearly 60,000 blood and CSF samples. The freezer farm is located at the WCM Feil Family Research Building, E. 405 61 Street, NYC. The Feil facility offers dedicated freezer space with additional emergency power, back-up CO2, and an alarmed temperature monitoring system. Our experienced team has established standard operating procedures with regard to handling freezer emergencies.
Both CSF and blood are collected under standardized procedures and processed by WCM and BHII staff. Blood is used to prepare plasma and serum aliquots for Alzheimer’s disease and lipidomic biomarker characterizations and to isolate buffy coat for DNA extraction. Processing is conducted under hooded conditions, using a Heraeus™ Multifuge™ X1/X1R benchtop refrigerated centrifuge.