Shaunna K. Morris, Ph.D.
University of California at San Diego
La Jolla, California

2003 New Investigator Research Grant

Researchers agree that current tests for measuring cognitive changes have serious limitations, especially in assessing the subtle changes associated with the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Developing drugs that are effective at these early stages when there is the greatest opportunity to preserve cognitive function will require better techniques for measuring subtle early-stage changes. Current assessment tools also have significant limitations in assessing cognition in diverse cultural and ethnic groups.

This project will explore the value of an imaging technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as a supplement to conventional cognitive tests in detecting very early memory problems in bilingual Mexican Americans. FMRI measures changes in patterns of brain cell activation as people perform intellectual tasks. These researchers believe that bilingual Mexican Americans with mild memory problems may experience distinctive activation patterns compared with other groups. The team will compare the fMRI patterns of bilingual Mexican Americans with mild impairment to those of unimpaired bilingual individuals. They will also compare images from unimpaired individuals who speak a single language to those of the unimpaired bilingual participants. Results may suggest that fMRI can help enhance detection of mild memory problems in bilingual Mexican Americans.