Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research

Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research

Speeding cures by quickly moving science to medicine - and back again.

All medical treatments come from clinical trials, and all treatments start with discoveries made in a science lab. 

This cycle of biomedical innovation, from bench to bedside and back, is what the Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research is designed, staffed and funded to support. Center scientists accelerate progress toward cures for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias by quickly bringing discoveries from the lab to the clinic. At the same time, scientists are learning from what’s happening in the clinic, and can use that information to pursue new questions. Medicine inspires science, and science improves medicine.

The Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research is led by Bess Frost, a scientist who also conducts clinical trials, and Edward “Ted” Huey, MD, a physician who also conducts research -- a rare combination. The center is rich in resources, integrating the expertise of the Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science and the Division of Biology and Medicine, and access to 1.5 million patients through Rhode Island’s supportive, closely connected healthcare system that includes seven hospitals affiliated with The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Brown established the center in April 2021 with two generous gifts totaling $30 million. The single aim: find cures. 

Alzheimer's disease research at Brown

118

Scientists and clinicians at Brown studying Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

18

Clinical studies

$ 45 million

in NIH funding per year

Resources

It’s an expansive and exciting time in Alzheimer’s disease research. Brown is well positioned to meet this moment and drive fast progress toward new discoveries, new clinical trials, and ultimately, new treatments.
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Study participants play a crucial role in the discovery of new knowledge to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
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Recent News

Carney Institute for Brain Science

Moving to a multifaceted view of dementia

On September 23, Edward “Ted” Huey, M.D., joined some of the nation’s leading experts on Alzheimer’s disease at the National Institute on Aging to help set research priorities and to present his work. Huey’s main message: Memory loss is not the only sign of this common and devastating disease.

Alzheimer’s and related dementias also cause motor symptoms, like hand tremors or weakness. And there can be neuropsychiatric symptoms: angry outbursts, sudden apathy, even visual hallucinations. Loss of appetite and weight loss and trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep are also common signs of Alzheimer’s and other common forms of dementia, which afflict more than 6 million people in the United States – including 40% of people over the age of 85, according to federal statistics.
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Edward “Ted” Huey, the director of the Memory and Aging Program at Butler Hospital and a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, has been named the associate director of Brown University's Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research.
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