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Research

28,580 Alzheimer's and dementia studies in plain English, each scored out of 100.

Find studies

Showing 1–25 of 86 studies in Brain scans and imaging of type cohort or longitudinal study · free to read (page 1 of 4) · 28,580 in the whole library · How the 0–100 score works

Download bibliography of these 86 studies, in this order: BibTeX (.bib) · RIS (.ris)

Browse by subject, author or institution

Each number is how many studies that link shows, with your other filters kept.

Other subjects

Authors

Names as each record prints them; the same person can appear under two spellings.

Institutions

From OpenAlex; 14,058 studies have no institution on record and are not counted here.

What “Brain scans and imaging” covers

Brain scans and imaging — MRI, PET and other scans: what they show, how early, and how reliably.

A note on reading research. One study is rarely the final word.

We try to note the size of a study, whether it was in humans or animals, and how early-stage the finding is. If a summary here doesn't make that clear, treat it with extra caution and check the original source.

Spatial patterns of neuroimaging biomarker change in individuals from families with autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease: a longitudinal study

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 77 out of 100. The Lancet. Neurology 2018-02-01

We found a sequence to pathological changes, with rates of Aβ deposition in mutation carriers being significantly different from those in non-carriers first (across regions that showed a significant difference, at a mean of 18·9 years [SD 3·3] before expected onset), followed by hypometabolism (14·1 years [5·1] before expected onset), and lastly structural decline (4·7 years [4·2] before expected onset). 2 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 346 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Brain and blood metabolite signatures of pathology and progression in Alzheimer disease: A targeted metabolomics study

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 73 out of 100. PLoS medicine 2018-01-25

We found that distinct sphingolipid species including sphingomyelin (SM) with acyl residue sums C16:0, C18:1, and C16:1 (SM C16:0, SM C18:1, SM C16:1) and hydroxysphingomyelin with acyl residue sum C14:1 (SM (OH) C14:1) were consistently associated with severity of AD pathology at autopsy and AD progression across prodromal and preclinical stages. 5 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 44 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Association Between Elevated Brain Amyloid and Subsequent Cognitive Decline Among Cognitively Normal Persons

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 73 out of 100. JAMA 2017-06-01

Among the 445 participants (243 with normal amyloid, 202 with elevated amyloid), mean (SD) age was 74.0 (5.9) years, mean education was 16.4 (2.7) years, and 52% were women. 2 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 243 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

CSF biomarkers of neuroinflammation and cerebrovascular dysfunction in early Alzheimer disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 73 out of 100. Neurology 2018-07-27

Neuroinflammation and cerebrovascular dysfunction are early events occurring already at presymptomatic stages of AD and contribute to disease progression. 5 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 508 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

The Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative (ADNI): MRI methods

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 72 out of 100. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging 2008-02-26

The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) is a longitudinal multisite observational study of healthy elders, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's disease. 5 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Soluble TREM2 in CSF and its association with other biomarkers and cognition in autosomal-dominant Alzheimer's disease: a longitudinal observational study

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 71 out of 100. The Lancet. Neurology 2022-04-01

Although studies in animal models suggest that TREM2 is protective against Alzheimer's pathology, its effect on tau pathology and its potential beneficial role in people with Alzheimer's disease is still unclear. 4 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 155 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Tau Positron Emission Tomography for Predicting Dementia in Individuals With Mild Cognitive Impairment

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100. JAMA neurology 2024-08-01

In the discovery cohort, the mean (SD) age was 70.9 (8.5) years, 191 (58%) were male, the mean (SD) MMSE score was 27.1 (1.9), and 110 individuals with MCI (33%) converted to dementia (71 to AD dementia). 4 key findings →

Design: cohort study Participants: 110 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Disease staging of Alzheimer's disease using a CSF-based biomarker model

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100. Nature aging 2024-03-21

Biological staging of individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) may improve diagnostic and prognostic workup of dementia in clinical practice and the design of clinical trials. 4 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 426 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Midlife systemic inflammatory markers are associated with late-life brain volume: The ARIC study

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 68 out of 100. Neurology 2017-11-01

Our prospective findings provide evidence for what may be an early contributory role of systemic inflammation in neurodegeneration and cognitive aging. 3 key findings →

Design: cohort study Participants: 1,633 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Association of Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging Signs With Cognitive Outcomes in Persons With Nonimpaired Cognition and Mild Cognitive Impairment

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 68 out of 100. JAMA network open 2019-05-03

In this study, lower AD signature region volumes, brain microhemorrhages, higher WMH volumes, and infarcts were risk factors associated with dementia in older community-based residents. 4 key findings →

Design: cohort study Participants: 1,553 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

The cortical signature of prodromal AD: regional thinning predicts mild AD dementia

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 67 out of 100. Neurology 2008-12-24

Thinning in specific cortical areas known to be affected by Alzheimer disease (AD) is detectable in individuals with questionable AD dementia (QAD) and predicts conversion to mild AD dementia. 3 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 49 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Bile acid synthesis, modulation, and dementia: A metabolomic, transcriptomic, and pharmacoepidemiologic study

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 67 out of 100. PLoS medicine 2021-05-27

We tested whether dysregulation of cholesterol catabolism, through its conversion to primary bile acids (BAs), was associated with dementia pathogenesis. 5 key findings →

Design: cohort study Participants: 141 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Etiology of White Matter Hyperintensities in Autosomal Dominant and Sporadic Alzheimer Disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 67 out of 100. JAMA neurology 2023-12-01

Data from 3960 MRI sessions among 1141 participants were included: 252 pathogenic variant carriers from DIAN (mean [SD] age, 38.4 [11.2] years; 137 [54%] female), 571 older adults from ADNI (mean [SD] age, 72.8 [7.3] years; 274 [48%] female), and 318 older adults from HABS (mean [SD] age, 72.4 [7.6] years; 194 [61%] female). 3 key findings →

Design: cohort study Participants: 1,141 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Association of Elevated Amyloid and Tau Positron Emission Tomography Signal With Near-Term Development of Alzheimer Disease Symptoms in Older Adults Without Cognitive Impairment

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 66 out of 100. JAMA neurology 2022-10-01

Among 580 participants (PREVENT-AD, 128; HABS, 153; AIBL, 48; Knight ADRC, 251), mean (SD) age ranged from 67 (5) to 76 (6) years across cohorts, with between 55% (137/251) and 74% (95/128) female participants. 2 key findings →

Design: cohort study Participants: 580 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Association of Neighborhood Context, Cognitive Decline, and Cortical Change in an Unimpaired Cohort

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 66 out of 100. Neurology 2021-04-14

In this longitudinal study of cognitively unimpaired adults, living in the most highly disadvantaged neighborhoods was associated with accelerated degeneration in Alzheimer signature regions and cognitive decline. 5 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 19 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Functional network integrity presages cognitive decline in preclinical Alzheimer disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 66 out of 100. Neurology 2017-06-07

In clinically normal older adults, lower functional connectivity predicted more rapid decline in PACC scores over time, particularly when coupled with increased Aβ burden. 2 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 237 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Association of β-Amyloid and Apolipoprotein E ε4 With Memory Decline in Preclinical Alzheimer Disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 66 out of 100. JAMA neurology 2018-04-01

However, the extent to which increasing age, Aβ, and ε4 are associated with memory decline remains unclear, and the age at which memory decline begins for Aβ-positive ε4 carriers and noncarriers has not been determined. 5 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 1,583 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Microglial activation in early Alzheimer trajectory is associated with higher gray matter volume

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 65 out of 100. Neurology 2019-02-22

In this in vivo study, we have demonstrated that microglial activation quantified using [ 11 C]PBR28 PET was associated with higher gray matter volume and higher hippocampal volume in patients with MCI. 4 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 55 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Brain Aging Among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Middle-Aged and Older Adults

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 65 out of 100. JAMA neurology 2023-01-01

Offspring participants (497 [33.9%]) had a mean (SD) age of 55 (10.7) years, had a mean (SD) of 13 (3.5) years of education, and included 117 Black individuals (23.5%), 348 Latinx individuals (70%), 32 White individuals (6.4%), and 324 women (65.2%). 1 key finding →

Design: cohort study Participants: 1,467 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

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Where “Free full text” comes from

Free full text links and the Full text may need a subscription label come from Unpaywall, Europe PMC and OpenAlex records of free copies, checked 10 Oct 2026. A study with neither is unknown, not paywalled.

How the 0–100 score works — and why some entries are capped

This is alzhub's own score. It is not an official metric, not an impact factor, and no journal, publisher or ranking body endorses it. We built it so that a reader who is not a scientist can tell a landmark trial from a conference abstract without having to already know the difference. Every point comes from one of 20 components, all of them printed on the study itself, so you can disagree with our arithmetic rather than having to trust the total.

  • Journal tier up to 10 pts
  • Journal's citation record up to 4 pts
  • Study design up to 12 pts
  • Strength of evidence up to 5 pts
  • Peer-review validation up to 10 pts
  • How recent up to 5 pts
  • Sample size up to 4 pts
  • Effect reported up to 3 pts
  • Studied in people up to 3 pts
  • Randomised / blinded up to 2 pts
  • Times cited up to 7 pts
  • Citations per year up to 5 pts
  • Impact for its field and year up to 6 pts
  • Cited by studies here up to 6 pts
  • Still being cited up to 4 pts
  • Senior author's track record up to 4 pts
  • Institution's track record up to 3 pts
  • Multi-centre collaboration up to 3 pts
  • Indexed in PubMed up to 2 pts
  • Free to read up to 2 pts

Journals are placed in ordered tiers, never given a numeric impact factor — we could not verify current impact factors from a source we control, and an invented one would be worse than none. Tier 1 is the top-tier general journals (NEJM, The Lancet, JAMA, Nature, Science, Nature Medicine); tier 2 is the leading specialty journals; tier 3 is every other peer-reviewed journal. A separate part scores how much the journal's own papers are cited, which tells the tier-3 journals apart.

Two rules we don't bend. First, we never fill in a missing value: if a record does not state a sample size or a design, that component scores zero, and if we simply have no data for a part, such as a citation count, that part is left out and the study is scored on the parts we could check. The study card says which. Second, anything that is not a peer-reviewed article is capped at 16/100 and carries a warning chip — so a conference abstract or a company press release can never outrank a peer-reviewed paper, no matter how good it looks.

We rank a rigorous null result — a good trial showing that something does not work — above an early positive finding. Someone deciding whether to buy a supplement is served by that, and the rigour is already counted by the design and journal components.

The score is computed from the published data alone and is reproducible: the same file always yields the same numbers.

See the whole rubric drawn out → — four charts covering all 28,580 studies: how the scores are spread and where the cap bites, which of the 20 components the library is strong and weak on, which subjects rest on stronger evidence, and what kinds of study each subject is actually built from.

What this library is — and isn't

This is a large sample of the Alzheimer's literature, not an exhaustive index of it. It holds 28,580 records, built mostly from automated pulls of Europe PMC (62.2% of the library) and OpenAlex (17.8%), plus smaller pulls from PubMed, Crossref and medRxiv. If a study, a drug, or a finding isn't here, that is not evidence it doesn't exist in the literature — it may simply not have been pulled in yet.

1,034 records (3.6% of the library) are not peer-reviewed — 962 of those are preprints posted before any journal review, and the rest are conference abstracts, regulatory notices and reports. Every study card on this page states its status plainly, and the score above is capped for anything that isn't a peer-reviewed article.

See the full, machine-readable breakdown of this library's coverage →

Newest studies, as a dated timeline →    Atom feed