Alicia Northall received a Trainee Professional Development Award (TDPA) for SfN 2022, for her abstract titled "Ultra-high resolution MR Imaging of the human primary motor cortex in ageing and disease". Alicia is a third-year PhD student in the IKND 'Cortical Microstructure' and 'Translational Imaging' (HIH, Tübingen) research groups led by Prof. Esther Kuehn. The award recognises those who demonstrate scientific merit and excellence in research, and includes an additional poster session with other awardees along with a travel stipend of 2,500$.

The management of Alzheimer’s disease will be transformed by digital technologies. Delighted to announce "The Digital Future of Alzheimer’s Disease" online symposium, 20th Sept, by the German Network of Memory Clinics and the DZNE

Azheimers-disease-symposium.com

We have three PhD positions available in Magdeburg in an exciting translational project investigating the effectiveness of a non-invasive stimulation approach that targets the noradrenergic system in ageing.

Please find more information here.

It is with great pleasure that we announce our second Locus Coeruleus imaging meeting in Magdeburg on the 12/13th of December 2019.

Esther Kuehn gives a talk at the OHBM 2019 [Rome, Italy]

Title: "Quality Control of Functional MRI at 7T"

Session: "Taking Control of Your Neuroimaging Data: Understanding artefacts and quantifying quality fMRI at the Resolution Scale of Cortical Columns and Layers"

Visit us at the 14th Long Night of Science on 25th May 2019 from 18:00!

You will find us in house 64 on the premises of the Universitätsmedizin Magdeburg (stop Fermersleber Weg or Universitätsklinikum, easily reachable by line 6 or 9).

During this event you can attend interesting lectures, take a look behind the scenes of research and our scientific studies, inform yourself about current projects and get in direct contact with our scientists. In addition, you can experience research for yourself, find out how sport can help your memory by trying out the brain ergometer training and test your memory, either by app or immerse yourself in a virtual reality (VR) within our VR memory room. You can also find our program and all other highlights of this evening here.

On 14.05.2019 the closing event of the joint project "TEAMSenior" took place at the Leibniz Institute of Neurobiology in Magdeburg from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

"TEAMSenior" is a subproject of the research network "Autonomy in Old Age". The project is funded by the European Fund for Regional Development (ERDF) in the period from 01.01.2016 to 30.06.2019 and aims to develop a prevention and care strategy for people with dementia with the help of volunteer seniors.

All study participants, relatives and volunteers were invited to the final meeting. The head of the project Prof. Dr. Emrah Düzel, the sports scientist Andreas Becke and the gerontologist Nancy Busse presented some results of the study group to the 40 participants and afterwards invited to a lunch buffet.

The study team would like to take this opportunity to thank all participants once again for their participation and commitment!

IKND researchers have investigated the development of the brain during the transition from adolescence to adulthood and find an increasing risk of psychiatric disorders. Their results have been published in the journal "Nature Neuroscience".

Ziegler G, Hauser TU, Moutoussis M, Bullmore ET, Goodyer IM, Fonagy, Jones PB; NSPN Consortium, Lindenberger U, Dolan RJ.Compulsivity and impulsivity traits linked to attenuated developmental frontostriatal myelination trajectories. Nature Neuroscience, 2019 May 13. doi: 10.1038/s41593-019-0394-3

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a period when ongoing brain development coincides with a substantially increased risk of psychiatric disorders. The developmental brain changes accounting for this emergent psychiatric symptomatology remain obscure.

Capitalizing on a unique longitudinal dataset that includes in vivo myelin-sensitive magnetization transfer (MT) MRI scans, we show that this developmental period is characterized by brain-wide growth in MT trajectories within both gray matter and adjacent juxtacortical white matter. In this healthy population, the expression of common developmental traits, namely compulsivity and impulsivity, is tied to a reduced growth of these MT trajectories in fronto-striatal regions. These findings highlight that psychiatric traits of compulsivity and impulsivity are linked to regionally specific reductions in myelin-related growth in late adolescent brain development.

The German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases in the Helmholtz Association (DZNE) Magdeburg has had its first junior research group since March 2019.

The "Multimodal Neuroimaging" group is headed by Dr. Anne Maass, who only returned from her two-and-a-half-year postdoctoral period in Berkeley last year. During her doctorate at IKND Magdeburg under Prof. Dr. med. Emrah Düzel, she had previously investigated memory functions with the aid of high-resolution 7 Tesla MRI imaging.

Supported by a Helmholtz Postdoc Grant, she then went to Berkeley to investigate the influence of Alzheimer's pathology on memory in the Berkeley age cohort in Bill Jagust's lab. Through molecular imaging (PET) using radioactive tracers, the regional spread of dew and amyloid proteins, which are also found in cognitively "normal" elderly people, can be mapped in living humans.

On the other hand, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) makes it possible to measure the function of memory networks in humans. The combined use of both imaging modalities showed that tau and amyloid are deposited in different memory networks, which was associated with specific memory deficits. At the DZNE Magdeburg, the new research group will use molecular and functional MRI imaging to better understand which memory functions are disturbed in old age and in neurodegenerative diseases and which factors influence neuronal plasticity in old age.

On April 30 at 13:00, the group will be presented at the DZNE during an inaugural lecture (House 64, Room 121). The event is open to the public (in English) and guests are very welcome.

Municipal support for the DZNE information campaign for brain research in Magdeburg

The German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) in Magdeburg is launching a city-wide information campaign.

Foto: DZNE/ Sarah Kossmann Fotografie

Prof. Emrah Düzel, speaker for the DZNE’s Magdeburg site as well as Head of the IKND, and mayor Dr. Lutz Trümper (right) jointly present the first campaign posters in front of Magdeburg’s City Hall.

Magdeburg is an internationally recognized site for neuroscience. The aim of the campaign is to draw the public’s attention to these activities and to inform about the possibility of getting involved. “Citizens can make an important contribution to brain and dementia research by participating in scientific studies. With their engagement, they can help to pave the way for better therapies against Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases,” said Prof. Emrah Düzel, speaker for the DZNE’s Magdeburg site. “I am very thankful that our Lord Mayor Dr. Lutz Trümper has expressed a strong interest in this project and that we are receiving active support from the Science Team of the City of Magdeburg."

More on the campaign can be found online at www.kopfmachen.de. This website also offers the opportunity to register for participation in scientific studies without commitment.

The DZNE researches neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at ten sites throughout Germany with the aim of developing novel strategies to prevention, treatment, and health care. The DZNE was founded in 2009. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association.

The Institute for Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research celebrates its 10th anniversary!

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the IKND, an anniversary symposium took place on December 6th, 2018 in the conference room of the DZNE.

The Institute for Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research emerged in 2008 from the Clinical Research Group "Normal and Disturbed Cognitive Control of Memory Functions".

The IKND investigates the mechanisms of higher cognitive brain functions, such as memory, motivation, targeted action, decision making and behavioral control. A particular focus is on the investigation of disorders of these brain functions in old age and neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia.

In addition to the Director of the Institute, Prof. Dr. Emrah Düzel, the Rector of the Otto-von-Guericke University, Prof. Dr. Jens Strackeljan, and the Director of Neurology at the University Hospital Magdeburg, Prof. Dr. Hans-Jochen Heinze, gave a speech at the ceremony. Afterwards, two former doctoral students and current cooperation partners of the IKND presented the results of their outstanding research.

Dr. Anne Maass, scientist at the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Madeburg and Dr. David Berron, scientist at Lund University in Sweden, gave an exciting lecture at the end of the event.

Impressions of the 10th anniversary:

The Alzheimer’s Association Internal Conference (AAIC) is the world largest and most influential international conference dedicated to advancing dementia science. In total, 6,500 participants composed of researchers from academic and non-academic institutions, pharma and companies contributed to an amazing event. Among them, scientists of the DZNE sites proudly shared their results and recent findings either by talks in different symposia or presentation of several posters. Remarkably, seven researchers of the DZNE site Magdeburg presented their work at the AAIC in Chicago, Illinois this year.

A neuroimaging symposium on amyloid and tau pathology was chaired by William James Jagust (University of California, Berkeley, USA) and the speaker of the Magdeburg site Emrah Düzel. This symposium was aimed to present an overview of the early network distribution patterns of amyloid and tau pathology as well as recent neuroimaging data from fMRI studies using different memory tasks in ageing and AD cohorts and to describe the specific functional memory pathways that are involved. Furthermore the scientists showed how amyloid and tau pathology, measured by CSF and PET, affect functional processing and connectivity in distinct brain networks and related memory functions in aging and AD. By relating pathology to pathway-specific facets of memory this symposium helped dissecting the cognitive impact of tau and amyloid.

Sharing the stage with renowned scientist (e.g. Oskar Hansson, Lund University, Sweden) DZNE young scientist demonstrated their excellent research. Selected contributions were:

• David Berron: Effects of Age and Tau Measured in CSF on Mnemonic Discrimination of Objects and Scenes in Medial Temporal Lobe Pathways (talk)

• Matthew Betts: Relationship between locus coeruleus MRI contrast, cognition and CSF biomarkers in aging and Alzheimer’s disease (talk)

• Emrah Düzel: Association between Neural Novelty Response and CSF Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease: Anatomical Specificity and Dependence on Atrophy (talk)

• Anne Maaß: Effects of Tau and Amyloid Deposition Measured By PET on Domain-Specific Memory Function in Old Age (talk)

• Coraline Metzger: Relationship between Local Restingstate Activity, ß-Amyloid Deposition and Memory Performance in the Dzne - Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study (DELCODE) (poster)

• Daniel Preiß: Cortical Atrophy in AD-Related Primary Progressive Aphasia Affects the Entire Left Hemisphere Language Network (poster)