Andreas Charidimou, MD, MSc, PhD, FESO, Awarded Alzheimer’s Association Grant to More Accurately Diagnose Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy

Andreas Charidimou, MD, MSc, PhD, FESO, assistant professor of neurology has been awarded a three-year, $200,000 grant from the Alzheimer’s Association® for his research, “Stratifying ARIA (amyloid-related imaging abnormalities) risk with cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) biomarkers.”

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy is a common condition in which proteins called amyloid build up on the walls of small superficial arteries in the brain. CAA is a major cause of bleeding into the brain (hemorrhagic stroke) in older individuals and a key contributor to dementia.

“This research addresses an entirely new topic in the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) field, one that has been created by the recent introduction of anti-amyloid treatments,” explains Charidimou.

The project will combine several emerging structural brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) biomarkers for identifying CAA. These markers include detailed anatomical aspects of the characteristic hemorrhagic markers of small vessel disease on blood-sensitive sequences. Additionally, the project will assess several newly defined non-hemorrhagic MRI markers that appear to carry diagnostic information for CAA.

“We hope to determine whether these markers can identify a reliable “CAA signature” in participants with or at risk for AD but without hemorrhagic stroke. This is a shift from the traditional CAA research that has largely focused on the hemorrhagic stroke consequences of advanced CAA,” he adds.

Charidimou graduated from the University of Athens Medical School (Athens, Greece), and was trained at the University College London, Queen Square, Institute of Neurology (London, UK) where he completed his post-graduate and PhD studies on applied clinical neuroimaging of cerebral small vessel disease and intracerebral hemorrhage. He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School Hemorrhagic Stroke Research Program under the mentorship of Professor Steve Greenberg.

Charidimou has extensive experience in leading translational, cutting edge, patient-based, clinic research in stroke and dementia, with more than 250 peer-reviewed publications including several landmark first author papers in the journals Lancet Neurology, Neurology, Stroke, JAMA Neurology and Brain, as well as a number of invited commentaries and editorials. He was the recipient of this year Michael S. Pessin Stroke Leadership Award by the American Academy of Neurology for this contribution and leadership in the CAA field.