Betthauser Research

Tobey Betthauser, PhD: The Time Course of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders

Tobey Betthauser, PhD, is a researcher investigating the sequence of events that occur in neurodegenerative disease and understanding the earliest biomarker-detectable signs of disease.

His lab develops and applies novel biomarker modeling methods to investigate this temporal sequence and anchors results to clinical trajectories and postmortem confirmation of brain pathology.

Dr. Tobey Betthauser's Faculty Profile

Biomarkers for AD Detection and Progression

In Alzheimer’s disease, characteristic pathologic lesions form one to two decades prior to the onset of cognitive symptoms, during a phase referred to as “preclinical AD.” Dr. Betthauser’s current work includes developing and evaluating novel approaches to characterizing the time course of amyloid accumulation and other pathophysiologic processes in AD using biomarkers for these biological targets.

Dr. Betthauser's team also investigates the sensitivity and specificity of in vivo biomarkers for their molecular targets with postmortem confirmation of pathologic entities.

This combined research is designed to better the understanding of the clinical and research utility and limitations of fluid and imaging biomarkers to detect pathophysiologic processes during life, and to better understand how these pathologic processes influence symptoms of disease.

Research Team

Multi-cohort Study of Factors that Influence Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarker and Dementia Timing

This study aims to identify common factors across multiple cohorts that influence the timing of events in Alzheimer’s disease such as the onset of beta-amyloid pathology, onset of tau pathology, and the time between pathology onset and clinical symptoms.

This study will also investigate the possible role of social determinant of health including neighborhood disadvantage in affecting the timing of these events across multiple cohorts

Postmortem Validation of 4D Flow MRI for Neuroimaging

4D Flow magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a method developed to characterize properties of larger vessels during life.

This study is comparing antemortem 4D Flow imaging with postmortem characterization of cerebral vessels to understand the correspondence between vessel pathology and vessel health, and antemortem 4D flow MRI outcomes.

Postmortem Validation of tau PET Ligand [18F]MK-6240

This collaborative study with the University of Pittsburgh, is comparing antemortem tau positron emission tomography (PET) imaging with MK-6240 with postmortem validation and quantification of tau, amyloid and other brain pathologies to understand the molecular signature of MK-6240 that drives in vivo tau PET imaging. 

View Dr. Tobey Betthauser's publications on NCBI MyBibliography

Funding Support

Dr. Betthauser's research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association.

Make a Gift

Help support our research by making a gift to the Department of Medicine's Science of Aging Fund.