Neuroimaging Research in Geriatric Mental Health

Description

The effect of aging on brain function has become a topic of great interest in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and gerontology over the past decade. Current research has fundamentally changed how the aging process is viewed. No longer is it consider inevitable that cognitive declines begin at middle age; the majority of elderly undergo a perfectly normal aging process that produces relatively benign changes in cognitive abilities. However, it is also understood that a minority of the elderly population can expect to suffer through an "abnormal aging" process which significantly increases the likelihood of cognitive impairment and dementia. For example, by comparison to young and middle aged adults, older adults are significantly more vulnerable to depression, mania, schizophrenia, substance abuse, and dementias such as Alzheimer's Disease. It is now generally believed that by exploring the neurobiological basis of these patient populations, scientists can begin to understand why abnormal aging happens and what can be done to treat it.

This volume, the first book to apply the brain imaging techniques of neuroscience to the geriatric population, examines the state-of-the-art in our understanding of the aging brain. Edited by a key figure in functional magnetic resonance imaging, the book focuses on specific populations and clinical syndromes.

Table of Contents

I INTRODUCTION
1.The Expanding Role of Neuroimaging Research in Geriatric Psychiatry

II. IMAGING MODALITIES
2. Computed Tomography (CT)
3.Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
4. Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS)
5. Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT)
6. Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
7. Functional MRI

III IMAGE PROCESSING
8. Volumetric analyses of structural imaging data: VBM and ROI-based approaches
9. Atrophy Correction for functional imaging analyses
10. Common Pitfalls in fMRI analyses
11. Software Packages

IV AGING
12. Structural brain changes associated with normal aging
13. The HAROLD model of neurocognitive aging
14. New insights into the functional neuroanatomy of aging

V AFFECTIVE DISORDERS
15. Vascular Depression Hypothesis
16. Hippocampal Changes with Depression
17. White matter abnormalities in geriatric depression
18. Late-life bipolar disorder

VI COGNITIVE DISORDERS
19. Alzheimer's Disease
20. Vascular Dementia
21. Frontotemporal Dementia
22. Mild Cognitive Impairment
23. Functional Imaging changes with dementia
24. Early detection and monitoring of AD with MRI: the ADNI project

VII PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS
25. Late-Life Schizophrenia
26. Psychosis of Dementia

VIII NEW IMAGING MODALITIES
27. Diffusion Tensor imaging (DTI)
28. Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
29. Magnetization Transfer Ratio (MTR)
30. Amyloid imaging

Author Biographies

Dr. Aizentstein is an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School and Director of its Geriatric Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory. He received a joint M.D./Ph.D. in medicine and computer science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1995. Dr. Aizenstein is specialty certified in psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a licensed M.D. in the State of Pennsylvania. His main area of research, which has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Aging, is depression later life. In 2004, he was awarded a "Young Investigators" grant by the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression for his work on the physiological basis of cognitive impairment in the depressed elderly.