Core B - Clinical Core

PROJECT SUMMARY The overarching goal of the Clinical Core is to establish and maintain clinical research infrastructure that provides deep phenotyping and longitudinal characterization of clinically and ethnoculturally diverse research participants for the local and wider research communities. Initially funded in 2004, the longstanding central theme of this ADRC is atypical and early age-of-onset cases and is one of few centers to focus on frontotemporal dementia, early-onset/atypical Alzheimer’s disease, prion, and now traumatic encephalopathy syndrome. Chinese and Latino Americans are substantially and meaningfully represented, in alignment with San Francisco demographics. Participant heterogeneity is deeply characterized using precision medicine tools to clarify the phenotypes of AD/ADRD molecular subtypes, predictors of disease trajectories, and the neural bases of cognition and behavior. Cognitive assessments and care models with real-world applicability for early detection and diagnosis are validated in the Core and extended to real world clinical practice to address major gaps in care. Core data and participants are readily shared to support impactful AD/ADRD research at UCSF and beyond. Core faculty offer multidisciplinary mentorship, clinical research rotations, and infrastructure for carrying out multi-dimensional AD/ADRD research to a large and diverse group of trainees. The Clinical Core works in close collaboration with all other Cores and serves a central and unifying role in the ADRC. The aims of the Clinical Core are to: 1) Perform longitudinal evaluation of functionally-intact normal controls, participants with mild cognitive impairment or mild behavioral impairment, Alzheimer’s dementia, frontotemporal dementia- spectrum disorder, traumatic encephalopathy syndrome, and prion disease. 2) Carry out innovative and deep phenotyping to characterize our participants’ clinical presentations and their longitudinal trajectories. 3) Provide clinical data and well characterized participants for research on aging and dementia to the larger research community. 4) Support research training. With this renewal, neuropsychologist Katherine Possin, PhD will assume the role of Core Lead, supported by neurologist Gil Rabinovici, MD and senior advisor Joel Kramer, PsyD.