Functional MRI for studying episodic memory in aging and Alzheimer's disease

Anatomic and functional neuroimaging have a potential for clarifying the differential diagnosis of dementia and for evaluating new treatments for memory impairment. Our neuroimaging research examines the neural abnormalities underlying memory impairment in aging and Alzheimer's disease. We use data from high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure hippocampal volumes, and data from high-speed echo-planar imaging to evaluate cortical physiology. The results obtained with neuroimaging techniques are then related to the subject's performance on memory tasks (encoding and retrieval) performed inside the scanner during functional MRI.