Tracy Butler Laboratory

Associated Lab Members

View Bio
Tracy ButlerM.D.
  • Associate Professor of Neurology in Radiology

Dr. Tracy Butler is a neurologist/neuroscientist with clinical subspecialty training in behavioral neurology and epilepsy and research fellowship training in functional and structural neuroimaging.  She is the medical director of the Brain Health Imaging Institute (BHII) where she oversees subject assessment and clinical trials of therapies and neuroimage biomarkers of aging and neurodegeneration.  Her research uses multimodal positron emission tomorgraphy (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) neuroimaging and complementary methods to better understand the biological basis of neuropsychiatric disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury, and as normal aging, focusing on pathophysiologic overlap among these conditions such as hormonal dysregulation, neuroinflammation and brain toxic protein (tau and amyloid) accumulation.

Farnia Feiz Photo
View Bio
Farnia FeizM.D., M.P.H.
  • Research Associate in Radiology

In 2020, Dr. Farnia Feiz joined the Quantitative Neuroimaging Laboratory (QNL) as clinical research manager. She helps with patient recruitment,  medical data review, and  regulatory  operations  of the QNL’s National Institutes of Health-funded  study. Prior to arriving at Weill Cornell Medicine, Dr. Feiz worked on numerous studies in neuroradiology and neurodegenerative diseases.  She holds an M.D. from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and an M.P.H. from New York University.  

Samantha Keil Ph.D.
  • Postdoctoral Associate in Radiology
View Bio
Sarah Khan
  • Research Coordinator in Radiology

Sarah is a research coordinator in the Tracy Butler lab for The LUCINDA trial. She is a graduate of Hunter College. She previously worked at Mount Sinai on a project investigating the basis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She is pursuing a master’s degree in nutrition. 

Tom Maloney
View Bio
Tom MaloneyPh.D.
  • Senior Research Associate in Radiology

Tom Maloney is a highly experienced project and data manager for complex clinical research studies of brain function.  He has deep expertise in developing database structures and tools and facilities for smooth, flexible capture, organization and retrieval of very large, very dense, highly diverse study data from multiple research and clinical domains. His background ranges from event-related electroencephalogram (EEG) potentials, sleep regulation, cognitive performance, chronobiology and neuropsychological testing to functional neuroimaging.  He has planned and managed research and clinical operations and data migrations at Stony Brook University, the Veterans Administration, University of California, Brown University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and, since 2019, Weill Cornell Medicine.  He is project manager for the LUCINDA Trial and Data Manager for the Brain Health Imaging Institute. 

View Bio
Hugh WangM.S.
  • Staff Associate in Radiology

Xiuyuan (Hugh) Wang has been working with Dr. Butler since 2011, first at New York University and now at Weill Cornell.  He received his bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from Shanghai University, and a master's degree from City College of New York. He is an image analyst in the lab working on biomedical signal and image processing. 

Lab Focus

Dr. Tracy Butler is a neurologist/neuroscientist with clinical subspecialty training in behavioral neurology and epilepsy and research fellowship training in functional and structural neuroimaging.  She is the medical director of the Brain Health Imaging Institute (BHII) where she oversees subject assessment and clinical trials of therapies and neuroimage biomarkers of aging and neurodegeneration.  Her research uses multimodal positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance (MR) neuroimaging and complementary methods to better understand the biological basis of neuropsychiatric disorders including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and normal aging.

Dr. Butler’s clinical work is limited to serving as the neurology and neuropsychiatry consultant to NewYork-Presbyterian Behavioral Health Center, diagnosing and treating hospitalized patients with severe psychiatric diseases who can sometimes fall between the cracks of psychiatry and neurology. 

Areas of Investigation

We use PET with novel and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved radiotracers, functional and structural MRI, and complementary neuroimaging and other techniques to improve understanding and treatment of human brain disorders including AD, TBI, epilepsy, depression, and normal agingWe focus on pathophysiologic overlap among these conditions such as hormonal dysregulation, neuroinflammation, and brain toxic protein accumulation and clearance.   

Lab Achievements

  • Launched a multi-site clinical trial, LeUprolide + Cholinesterase Inhibition to reduce Neurologic Decline in Alzheimer’s
    (LUCINDA), during the pandemic. LUCINDA uses innovative hybrid and remote assessment procedures to determine whether a repurposed hormonal medication can improve memory in women with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or AD.
  • First demonstration using translocator protein (TSPO) PET that human seizures and epilepsy are intrinsically inflammatory, challenging the assumption of prior work that had considered inflammation primarily a result of initiating or seizure-induced neural damage. 
  • Devised a manual tracing protocol based on histology to assess volume of septal nuclei, a small, under-studied basal forebrain structure important for memory and implicated in epilepsy and AD. 
  • First to detect inflammation in the human hypothalamus using PET, demonstrating sex differences potentially relevant to menopause. 
  • First to perform tau PET scanning acutely after traumatic brain injury in order to understand how processes occurring acutely after TBI may contribute to neurodegeneration decades later. 

Research Projects

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide and a risk factor for later development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). TBI causes increased axonal production and rapid brain deposition of amyloid, a pathologic hallmark of AD. Persistence of amyloid...

Inflammation is a vital, complex process by which certain cells or tissues identified by the immune system as abnormal (e.g., foreign, damaged or dead) can be repaired or removed to facilitate continued survival of remaining cells and the organism. Excessive or dysregulated...

This pilot project will assess positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) biomarkers of neurodegeneration in female victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) with and without TBI.  The goal is to...

Septal nuclei, located in the anterior basal forebrain, exert strong control over...

Weill Cornell Medicine
Department of Radiology
525 East 68th Street New York, NY 10065