Associated Lab Members
Dr. Yi Li, co-director of imaging research for the Brain Health Imaging Institute (BHII), is an associate professor of radiology in the Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) Department of Radiology. Dr. Li, who trained as a radiologist at Shandong Medical University, earned his doctorate in nuclear medicine from the Shandong University Graduate School. In 2007, Dr. Li became co-director of the New York University (NYU) Center for Brain Health Neuroimaging Laboratory, specializing in structural and positron emission tomography (PET)-related imaging research in aging and dementia. In 2019, Dr. Li’s research team joined WCM to help found the BHII.
Dr. Liangdong Zhou earned his doctorate in computational science and engineering from Yonsei University. During his Ph.D. program, Dr. Zhou was trained in mathematical and computational modeling of inverse problems in medical imaging, including electrical impedance tomography (EIT), magnetic resonance elastography (MRE), and quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM). He then joined Dr. Yi Wang's magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lab—Wanglab—for postdoctoral training in biophysical modeling and magnetic resonance (MR) data acquisition. At Wanglab, Dr. Zhou developed Quantitative Transport Mapping (QTM), a novel perfusion quantification method. By using both MRI and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, Dr. Liangdong, under the supervision of Dr. Yi Li, is now working on the quantitative analysis of cerebrospinal fluid clearance in neurodegenerative disease.
Using neuroimaging tools, Dr. Li, whose research focuses on neurogenerative disease, establishes brain structure and function biomarkers in normal aging. For several of his Alzheimer’s disease (AD) imaging projects, he has received awards from the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) and Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI).
A founding member of the Brain Health Imaging Institute (BHII), Dr. Li has been building and applying innovative positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tools to study neuroanatomical, functional and pathological abnormalities—tau, beta amyloid and inflammation—for several National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded projects. Dr. Li is the principal investigator on an R01 study of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) clearance in sporadic AD, where he works to develop an improved mechanistic understanding of CSF clearance, and to reduce the risk of dementia by modifying the biological consequences of impaired CSF clearance.
Award or Grant: National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 AG057848 (2018-2023)
This project examines the longitudinal relationship between cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) clearance and the brain amyloid burden in sporadic Alzheimer's disease.
...This project monitors brain function changes during sleep, including perivascular space, brain perfusion, cerebral vascular pulsation, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-compatible electroencephalogram (EEG).
This project develops a new biomarker of glymphatic clearance by mapping brain tissue free water. We hypothesize that the increased brain parenchyma cerebrospinal fluid fraction (CSFF) is predictive of ventricular CSF...
