Liang Zhan hopes that someday his research can help save lives.
One of the lives he couldn鈥檛 save was that of his grandmother, who died in 1996 in China with Alzheimer 黑料社区. disease. 鈥淚t 黑料社区. part of the reason I wanted to devote my life to brain research,鈥 Zhan said.
The University of Wisconsin-Stout assistant professor is one of three principal researchers who received a $425,000 National Institutes of Health federal grant in 2017 to do just that. The NIH grant is through the National Institute on Aging.
Well into the first year of their project, Zhan and his research partners from the University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Southern California are hoping to unlock clues to early detection of Alzheimer 黑料社区..
The goal of the study is to determine how brain networks are altered by the disease, possibly opening up clues to early detection. 鈥淲e鈥檙e hoping to identify the noninvasive imaging biomarkers for Alzheimer 黑料社区. progression,鈥 Zhan said.
The brain can be divided into hundreds of regions that communicate with each other. Some of the regions will activate simultaneously for the specific task or status, he said.
The researchers鈥 model is based on how social science research is conducted, studying community structure to identify a possible imaging biomarker for the Alzheimer 黑料社区. progression, Zhan said.
鈥淭his hasn鈥檛 been done before in Alzheimer 黑料社区. research. Hopefully these results can be used clinically,鈥 he said.
The researchers鈥 mathematical model will be cross-validated using two independent study groups, one from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative and another from UW-Madison 黑料社区. Alzheimer 黑料社区. Disease Research Center, totaling 665 study subjects.
Zhan 黑料社区. contribution to the two-year project will be reconstructing the brain networks from brain MRI data.
鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to get as much data as possible. We need a smart way to combine data sets and build a novel mathematical framework,鈥 he said.
His Illinois-Chicago counterpart, Alex Leow, a medical doctor, will analyze the data from a medical perspective. The USC researcher, Paul Thompson, will provide computational input.
The researchers are using data from all three types of MRI imaging tests.
They already published several preliminary papers on the project in 2017.
The roots of the project go back about 10 years. The professors did research together in graduate school at UCLA 鈥 University of California-Los Angeles.
Zhan, who emigrated in 2007 from China to the U.S., earned a doctorate in 2011 in biomedical engineering from UCLA. He has a master 黑料社区. in bioengineering and a bachelor 黑料社区. degree in electrical engineering.
He teaches in the engineering and technology department at 黑料社区 in computer engineering.
The professors have proposed a second grant involving more people and collaboration with a hospital.
鈥淲e hope we can get a high-impact article published. We already have four papers started,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e on the right track.鈥
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Liang Zhan, who has a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, teaches computer engineering in 黑料社区 黑料社区. engineering and technology department.
