Columbia University
Irving Medical Center
Neurological Institute
710 West 168th Street, 3rd floor
(212) 305-1818


TaubCONNECT Research Perspective:
July 2025
Early Proteasome Downregulation and Dysfunction Drive Proteostasis Failure in Alzheimer's Disease
The Role of Alpha-Synuclein in Synucleinopathy: Impact on Lipid Regulation at Mitochondria-ER
Associations Between Hearing Loss and Dementia in a Large Electronic Health Record System
APOE and Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias Risk Among 12,221 Hispanics/Latinos
A Human Brain Map of Mitochondrial Respiratory Capacity and Diversity
ANXA11 Biomolecular Condensates Facilitate Protein-Lipid Phase Coupling on Lysosomal Membranes
Axonal Transport of CHMP2b Is Regulated by Kinesin-Binding Protein and Disrupted by CHMP2bintron5
Sleep Genetics and Cognitive Changes over Time: The Moderating Effect of Age and the Role of Brain
Emerging Roles for Tubulin PTMs in Neuronal Function and Neurodegenerative Disease
Inflammatory Biomarkers Profiles and Cognition Among Older Adults
Synaptic and Cognitive Impairment Associated with L444P Heterozygous Glucocerebrosidase Mutation
Regulation of Synapse Density by Pumilio RNA-Binding Proteins
CD33 and SHP-1/PTPN6 Interaction in Alzheimer's Disease
Cellular Communities Reveal Trajectories of Brain Ageing and Alzheimer's Disease
Epigenetic and Genetic Risk of Alzheimer Disease from Autopsied Brains in two Ethnic Groups
Multi-Omic Analysis of Huntington's Disease Reveals a Compensatory Astrocyte State
Design and Methods of the Early Age-Related Hearing Loss Investigation Randomized Controlled Trial
Updated Safety Results From Phase 3 Lecanemab Study in Early Alzheimer's Disease
The Broken Alzheimer's Disease Genome
Rare Genetic Variation in Fibronectin 1 (FN1) Protects Against APOEε4 in Alzheimer's Disease
Cell Subtype-Specific Effects of Genetic Variation in the Alzheimer's Disease Brain
Diet, Pace of Biological Aging, and Risk of Dementia in the Framingham Heart Study
A Comparative Study of Structural Variant Calling in WGS from Alzheimer's Disease Families
Glucocorticoid Stress Hormones Stimulate Vesicle-Free Tau Secretion and Spreading in the Braint
The Effects of Insufficient Sleep and Adequate Sleep on Cognitive Function in Healthy Adults
ZCCHC17 Modulates Neuronal RNA Splicing and Supports Cognitive Resilience in Alzheimer's Disease
Effects of Lithium on Serum Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in Alzheimer's Patients with Agitation
2023 Taub Institute Grants for Emerging Research (TIGER) Awardees!
Rie1 and Sgn1 Form an RNA-Binding Complex that Enforces the Meiotic Entry Cell Fate Decision
Memory and Language Cognitive Data Harmonization Across the United States and Mexico
Education as a Moderator of Help Seeking Behavior in Subjective Cognitive Decline
Multicellular Communities are Perturbed in the Aging Human Brain and Alzheimer's Disease
The Neuropathological Landscape of Hispanic and non-Hispanic White Decedents with Alzheimer Disease
The Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease Whole-Genome Sequencing Project: Study Design and Methodology
Polygenic Risk Score Penetrance & Recurrence Risk in Familial Alzheimer Disease
High School Quality is Associated with Cognition 58 Years Later
Glucocorticoid-Driven Mitochondrial Damage Stimulates Tau Pathology
A Global View of the Genetic Basis of Alzheimer Disease
ARIA in Patients Treated with Lecanemab (BAN2401) in a Phase 2 Study in Early Alzheimer's Disease
Microglia Reactivity Entails Microtubule Remodeling from Acentrosomal to Centrosomal Arrays
Genuine Selective Caspase-2 Inhibition with new Irreversible Small Peptidomimetics
Cell Type-Specific Changes Identified by Single-Cell Transcriptomics in Alzheimer's Disease
Brain Aging Among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Middle-Aged and Older Adults
First Place: Neuroproteasome Localization and Dysfunction Modulate Pathology in Alzheimer's Disease
Clearance of an Amyloid-Like Translational Repressor is Governed by 14-3-3 Proteins
Diet Moderates the Effect of Resting State Functional Connectivity on Cognitive Function
Retromer Deficiency in Tauopathy Models Enhances the Truncation and Toxicity of Tau
Progranulin Mutations in Clinical and Neuropathological Alzheimer's Disease
Wolframin is a Novel Regulator of Tau Pathology and Neurodegeneration
Homotypic Fibrillization of TMEM106B Across Diverse Neurodegenerative Diseases
Correlation of Plasma and Neuroimaging Biomarkers in Alzheimer's Disease
Tubulin Tyrosination Regulates Synaptic Function and is Disrupted in Alzheimer's Disease
The Penalty of Stress - Epichaperomes Negatively Reshaping the Brain in Neurodegenerative Disorders
The Neuronal Retromer can Regulate Both Neuronal and Microglial Phenotypes of Alzheimer's Disease
Deep Learning Improves Utility of Tau PET in the Study of Alzheimer's Disease
Age of Onset of Huntington's Disease in Carriers of Reduced Penetrance Alleles
Caspase-9: A Multimodal Therapeutic Target With Diverse Cellular Expression in Human Disease
Midlife Vascular Factors and Prevalence of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Late-Life in Mexico
The Association Between Sex and Risk of Alzheimer's Disease in Adults with Down Syndrome
Marked Mild Cognitive Deficits in Humanized Mouse Model of Alzheimer's-Type Tau Pathology
Rapid ATF4 Depletion Resets Synaptic Responsiveness after cLTP
Polygenic Risk Score for Alzheimer's Disease in Caribbean Hispanics
Recognition Memory and Divergent Cognitive Profiles in Prodromal Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia
The Microtubule Cytoskeleton at the Synapse & The Synaptic Life of Microtubules
Optimizing Subjective Cognitive Decline to Detect Early Cognitive Dysfunction
The AD Tau Core Spontaneously Self-Assembles and Recruits Full-Length Tau to Filaments
Olfactory Impairment is Related to Tau Pathology and Neuroinflammation in Alzheimer's Disease
Pathogenic Role of Delta 2 Tubulin in Bortezomib-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy
2: Phase Contrast-Derived Cerebral Blood Flow is Associated with Neurodegeneration and Cerebrovascular Injury in Older Adults
3: Accelerating Biomedical Discoveries in Brain Health Through Transformative Neuropathology of Aging and Neurodegeneration
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Richard Mayeux, MD, MSc | Mark Logue, PhD (Boston University) |
As part of a multi-institutional study led by researchers from Boston University, we recently explored how genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease may differ across subgroups within African American populations. Using genome-wide association data from both the VA Million Veteran Program and the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium, we stratified analyses by sex, age at onset, and APOE-ε4 status—factors that are often biologically meaningful but underexamined in combination, particularly in non-European cohorts.

Figure 2. Forest plot showing the effect sizes (odds ratios) and 95% confidence intervals for the MVP/ADGC meta-analysis results for the genome-wide significant SNPs in both the stratum in which the association was identified and the opposite stratum. The green points show the effect of rs139130053 in APOE-ε4 negative individuals (upper green point) and APOE-ε4 positive individuals (lower green point). The pink points show the effect of rs115882880 in females (upper pink point) and males (lower pink point). The blue points show the effect of rs141838133 in individuals with onset age ≥ 75 years (upper blue point) and individuals with onset age < 75 years (lower blue point).
As recently reported in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, this approach uncovered three genome-wide significant loci outside of the APOE region: a variant near EPHA5 associated with earlier onset cases, a signal in GRIN3B (next to ABCA7) that was strongest in females, and a variant near TSPEAR in APOE-ε4 non-carriers. These genes are implicated in pathways related to synaptic plasticity, insulin signaling, and protein degradation—mechanisms that are increasingly recognized as relevant to Alzheimer’s disease pathophysiology.
These findings add to growing evidence that stratified genetic analysis—particularly in underrepresented populations—can reveal novel risk loci that may be missed in more generalized approaches. They underscore the importance of both diverse population representation and biologically informed subgroup analysis in dementia genetics. Together, these strategies offer a more nuanced view of Alzheimer’s disease risk and help illuminate the complexity of its genetic basis across different groups.
Richard Mayeux, MD, MSc
Gertrude H. Sergievsky Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry and Epidemiology (in the Sergievsky Center and Taub Institute)
rpm2@cumc.columbia.edu

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Jeffrey Pyne, PhD | Adam Brickman, PhD |
Using data from the Washington Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project (WHICAP), our recent study, led by Dr. Jeffrey Pyne, examined how extracranial blood flow relates to structural markers of brain health in older adults. Phase contrast MRI was used to measure blood flow through the major arteries supplying the brain, and we assessed its associations with cortical volume, white matter integrity, white matter hyperintensities (WMH), and cerebral microbleeds in a racially and ethnically diverse cohort of 311 participants.

Figure 3. Illustration showing the significant associations of extracranial total (yellow), anterior (green), and posterior (purple) cerebral blood flow with cortical, subcortical, and ventricular system regional volume ROIs. Regional volume ROIs with nonsignificant associations with extracranial blood flow are shown in gray. Analyses are adjusted for age, vascular risk factors, intracranial volume, and sex, with corrections applied for multiple comparisons.
As recently reported in Frontiers in Neuroscience, lower extracranial cerebral blood flow—both total and within the anterior and posterior circulations—was associated with reduced white matter tract integrity in key regions such as the forceps minor, cingulum cingulate gyrus, and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. We also observed that reduced blood flow was linked to smaller cortical volumes and greater WMH burden, suggesting that diminished vascular supply may contribute to both neurodegeneration and small vessel disease.
These findings support the view that systemic vascular factors—such as reduced extracranial blood flow—may play a meaningful role in driving structural brain changes associated with aging and cerebrovascular disease. Longitudinal research is needed to determine the temporal dynamics and causal direction of these associations.
Adam Brickman, PhD
Professor of Neuropsychology (in Neurology, the Taub Institute, and the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center)
amb2139@cumc.columbia.edu


In this recently published Neuron perspective, co-led by Dr. Melissa Murray (Mayo Clinic Jacksonville), we explore how the field of neuropathology is being reshaped by a convergence of technologies and disciplines. What we call “transformative neuropathology” goes beyond integrating traditional histopathology with advanced tools like multi-omics and machine learning—it’s about building a framework that allows us to extract much deeper insights from postmortem human brain tissue. These insights are critical for identifying disease mechanisms, biomarkers, and therapeutic targets. However, advancing this kind of research also depends on strengthening the systems around it: sustaining brain banks, broadening donor participation, accelerating autopsy workflows, and improving how we train the next generation of investigators.

Figure 2. Overview of a brain bank ecosystem. Three boxes depict the ideal brain bank ecosystem with bidirectional flow of information and cross-domain training toward accelerating biomedical discoveries. See full caption.
Working closely with Taub Institute investigators Drs. Vilas Menon, Philip L. De Jager, and a team of collaborators from multiple institutions, we focused on practical, forward-looking ways to enhance how we collect, share, and analyze human brain tissue. This includes everything from improving tissue quality and recruitment diversity to scaling digital pathology and harmonizing data across institutions. Lessons from fields like neuroimaging show us the value of shared data models and multi-site coordination, which we believe can and should be applied to tissue-based research. We outline concrete strategies for enhancing tissue quality, standardizing practices, and making brain tissue studies more inclusive and scalable. Our aim with this work is to chart a path forward that enables postmortem brain research to contribute more directly and consistently to translational discovery in aging and neurodegeneration.
Hemali Phatnani, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurological Sciences (in Neurology)
hp2286@cumc.columbia.edu
