Livestream available at http://live.videos.med.wisc.edu/ (password: geriatrics)

Dr. Betthauser is an assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison investigating methods and strategies to enable early detection of Alzheimer’s disease pathophysiology using positron emission tomography imaging. He received his Bachelor’s degree in physics from SUNY-Plattsburgh. Dr. Betthauser went on to complete his doctoral training in medical physics with a focus on nuclear medicine and neuroimaging from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Betthauser recently completed his postdoctoral training in clinical dementia research and neurodegenerative disease neuropathology at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. His Doctoral thesis focused on methods development and evaluation of novel tracers for imaging pathologic tau protein aggregates observed in Alzheimer’s disease. His current research efforts are directed at using PET tracers for beta-amyloid and tau protein aggregates, hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease pathology, in conjunction with structural magnetic resonance imaging and fluid biomarkers to better understand the early course of AD biomarkers and how these measures might inform disease staging and prognosis.

In his talk, Dr. Betthauser will present recent results from his postdoctoral training at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. This work investigated imaging and fluid biomarkers of AD pathophysiology to identify changes in beta-amyloid and tau proteins in relation to cognitive decline and health factors during the asymptomatic (i.e. “preclinical”) phase of Alzheimer’s disease.