PhD position on imaging and modeling microvascular dysfunction in dementia
About the position
Processes such as brain vascular pathology, reduced cerebral blood flow (CBF), loss of function of the neuroprotective blood-brain barrier (BBB), impaired neurovascular coupling and disrupted brain clearance of waste products, can initiate and progress neurodegeneration, leading to dementia. It is not clear, however, to what extent these factors contribute to the development of dementia and how they influence disease progression. In this project the selected PhD candidate will exploit new developments in MRI technologies at 7 Tesla and computational modelling to determine how (micro)vascular dysfunction is manifested in dementia. The candidate will use multi-contrast functional MRI acquisitions at 7T with customized signal reception and encoding hardware (high density-receive arrays and insert gradient) to obtain data from patients with dementia and healthy controls. The candidate will optimize advanced data analysis approaches and our computational model of the cortical vasculature and hemodynamics to characterize differences in microvascular function between patients and healthy controls. In addition, since cortical vascular dynamics (heart-rate, respiration, vasomotion) are probably linked to brain waste clearance, the candidate will investigate the relation between microvascular dysfunction and clearance disturbances.
This PhD project is part of the consortium BRAIN BARRIERS which focuses on the role of the neurovasculature in dementia. BRAIN BARRIERS is a collaboration between AUMC, LUMC, Maastricht UMC, Radboud UMC, and UMC Utrecht, which brings together experts with a drive for translational research, ranging from biologists, preclinical scientists, biomarker specialists, imaging experts to clinicians. The selected candidate will work together with various other PhD students from this unique research team.
