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Research

27,380 Alzheimer's and dementia studies in plain English, each scored out of 100.

Find studies

Showing 1–25 of 28 studies by Johnson KA with an author at Massachusetts General Hospital (US) (page 1 of 2) · 27,380 in the whole library · How the 0–100 score works

Browse by subject, author or institution

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

Subjects

Other authors

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

Other institutions

From OpenAlex; 12,859 studies have no institution on record and are not counted here.

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.

Short-term Psychological Outcomes of Disclosing Amyloid Imaging Results to Research Participants Who Do Not Have Cognitive Impairment

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 74 out of 100. JAMA neurology 2020-12-01

Compared with participants who learned that they had a not elevated amyloid result, individuals who learned of an elevated amyloid result were no more likely to experience short-term increases in depression (mean [SD] change in the Geriatric Depression Scale score, 0.02 [1.3] vs 0.04 [1.3]; P = .90), anxiety (mean [SD] change in State-Trait Anxiety Inventory score, -0.02 [3.2] vs -0.15 [3.0]; P = .65), or suicidality (mean [SD] change in the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale score, 0.0 [0.4] vs -0.01 [0.5]; P = .67). 5 key findings →

Design: cohort study Participants: 1,167 Evidence: high

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

Association of Factors With Elevated Amyloid Burden in Clinically Normal Older Individuals

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 68 out of 100. JAMA neurology 2020-06-01

The large number of participants screened with amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) and standardized assessments provides an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate factors associated with elevated brain amyloid. 5 key findings →

Design: cross-sectional Participants: 4,486 Evidence: low

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

Florbetapir (F18-AV-45) PET to assess amyloid burden in Alzheimer's disease dementia, mild cognitive impairment, and normal aging

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 63 out of 100. Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association 2013-01-30

The data are consistent with expected rates of amyloid positivity among individuals with clinical diagnoses of AD and MCI, and indicate the potential value of florbetapir F18 PET as an adjunct to clinical diagnosis. 2 key findings →

Design: clinical trial Participants: 184 Evidence: low

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

Amyloid is linked to cognitive decline in patients with Parkinson disease without dementia

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 63 out of 100. Neurology 2012-12-12

At baseline measurements, amyloid burden does not distinguish between cognitively impaired and unimpaired subjects with PD without dementia, but our data suggest that amyloid contributes to cognitive, but not motor, decline over time. 3 key findings →

Design: cohort study Participants: 46 Evidence: moderate

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

Invited review: Frontotemporal dementia caused by microtubule-associated protein tau gene (MAPT) mutations: a chameleon for neuropathology and neuroimaging

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 62 out of 100. Neuropathology and applied neurobiology 2015-02-01

Hereditary frontotemporal dementia associated with mutations in the microtubule-associated protein tau gene (MAPT) is a protean disorder. 1 key finding →

Design: longitudinal study Evidence: moderate

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

Parental History of Memory Impairment and β-Amyloid in Cognitively Unimpaired Older Adults

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 61 out of 100. JAMA neurology 2024-08-01

Of 4413 individuals (mean [SD] age, 71.27 [4.66] years, 2617 women [59.3%]), mean Aβ-PET was elevated in individuals with history of memory impairment in both parents (n = 455; mean [SD] standardized uptake value ratio [SUVR] = 1.12 [0.19]; Wilcoxon P = 1.1 × 10-5) and in those with only maternal history (n = 1772; mean [SD] SUVR = 1.10 [0.19]; Wilcoxon P = 2.70 × 10-5) compared with those with only paternal history (n = 632; mean [SD] SUVR = 1.08 [0.18]; Wilcoxon P = 1.1 × 10-5) or no family history (n = 1554; mean [SD] SUVR = 1.08 [0.19]; Wilcoxon P = 1.1 × 10-5). 3 key findings →

Design: cross-sectional Participants: 455 Evidence: high

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

Association of Higher Cortical Amyloid Burden With Loneliness in Cognitively Normal Older Adults

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 60 out of 100. JAMA psychiatry 2016-12-01

Loneliness is a perceived state of social and emotional isolation that has been associated with cognitive and functional decline and an increased risk of incident AD dementia. 5 key findings →

Design: cross-sectional Participants: 25 Evidence: low

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

Examining Cognitive Decline Across Black and White Participants in the Harvard Aging Brain Study

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 58 out of 100. Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD 2020-01-01

Accounting for educationalfactors, vascular factors, and Aβ burden diminished, but did not eliminate, racial differences in PACC5 performance longitudinally. 4 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 296 Evidence: moderate

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

Executive function and instrumental activities of daily living in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 58 out of 100. Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association 2011-05-01

This relationship was evident even after accounting for degree of memory deficit across the continuum of cognitive impairment and dementia. 2 key findings →

Participants: 793 Evidence: moderate

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

Association of Digital Clock Drawing With PET Amyloid and Tau Pathology in Normal Older Adults

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 56 out of 100. Neurology 2021-02-15

DCTclock discriminates between diagnostic groups and improves upon traditional cognitive tests for detecting biomarkers of amyloid and tau pathology in CN older adults. 3 key findings →

Participants: 300 Evidence: low

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

Regional cortical thinning predicts worsening apathy and hallucinations across the Alzheimer disease spectrum

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 56 out of 100. The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry 2013-07-24

Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. 4 key findings →

Design: cross-sectional Participants: 413 Evidence: moderate

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

Appropriate use criteria for amyloid PET: a report of the Amyloid Imaging Task Force, the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, and the Alzheimer's Association

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 55 out of 100. Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association 2013-01-01

Positron emission tomography (PET) of brain amyloid b is a technology that is becoming more available, but its clinical utility in medical practice requires careful definition. 5 key findings →

Evidence: low

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

Association of Memory Impairment With Concomitant Tau Pathology in Patients With Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 55 out of 100. Neurology 2021-02-24

These results suggest that the presence of objective memory impairment in patients with probable CAA could serve as a marker for underlying tau pathology. 4 key findings →

Design: cross-sectional Participants: 39 Evidence: low

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

Odor identification and Alzheimer disease biomarkers in clinically normal elderly

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 55 out of 100. Neurology 2015-05-01

Our objective was to investigate cross-sectional associations between odor identification ability and imaging biomarkers of neurodegeneration and amyloid deposition in clinically normal (CN) elderly individuals, specifically testing the hypothesis that there may be an interaction between amyloid deposition and neurodegeneration in predicting odor identification dysfunction. 1 key finding →

Design: cross-sectional Evidence: low

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

Mild to moderate Alzheimer dementia with insufficient neuropathological changes

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 51 out of 100. Annals of neurology 2014-04-08

Recently, ~16% of participants in an anti-Aβ passive immunotherapy trial for mild-to-moderate Alzheimer disease (AD) had a negative baseline amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) scan. 1 key finding →

Evidence: low

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

Autoradiography validation of novel tau PET tracer [F-18]-MK-6240 on human postmortem brain tissue

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 51 out of 100. Acta neuropathologica communications 2019-03-11

[F-18]-MK-6240, a novel tau positron emission tomography (PET) tracer recently discovered for the in vivo detection of neurofibrillary tangles, has the potential to improve diagnostic accuracy in the detection of Alzheimer disease. 2 key findings →

Evidence: low

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

Molecular imaging with Pittsburgh Compound B confirmed at autopsy: a case report

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 51 out of 100. Archives of neurology 2007-03-01

Patient A 76-year-old man with a clinical diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies underwent fluorodeoxyglucose (18)F and PiB positron emission tomographic brain scans. 4 key findings →

Evidence: low

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription

Inferior and medial temporal tau and cortical amyloid are associated with daily functional impairment in Alzheimer's disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 49 out of 100. Alzheimer's research & therapy 2019-01-31

A decline in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) correlates with the progression from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia and has been associated with frontal and parietal hypometabolism, lower cerebrospinal fluid amyloid β 1-42 , and inferior temporal cortical thinning. 4 key findings →

Design: cross-sectional Evidence: low

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

Update on appropriate use criteria for amyloid PET imaging: dementia experts, mild cognitive impairment, and education. Amyloid Imaging Task Force of the Alzheimer’s Association and Society for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 47 out of 100. Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association 2013-07-01

Amyloid PET imaging is a novel diagnostic test that can detect in living humans one of the two defining pathologic lesions of Alzheimer disease, amyloid-β deposition in the brain. 3 key findings →

Evidence: low

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. Show only studies that are free to read

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 27,380 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 27,380 records, built mostly from automated pulls of Europe PMC (60.6% of the library) and OpenAlex (18.6%), 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.

1,032 records (3.8% 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