alzhub.org
Get help now — free helplines

You can call any of these for free. You do not need a diagnosis, an appointment, or a crisis to call — questions and plain exhaustion are reasons enough.

  • Alzheimer's Association 24/7 Helpline 800-272-3900 24 hours a day, 365 days a year Free, confidential support and information for people with dementia, caregivers, families and the public. Master's-level clinicians. Also Spanish.
  • 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline 988 24/7 Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. For anyone in emotional distress or a mental-health crisis, including caregivers.
  • Alzheimer's Foundation of America (AFA) Helpline 866-232-8484 9:00 am - 9:00 pm ET, seven days a week Licensed social workers providing support, info and referrals. Also text message and web chat. Text: 646-586-5283

In a medical emergency, call 911. More numbers, and what each line does, on the help page.

Research

27,780 Alzheimer's and dementia studies in plain English, each scored out of 100.

Find studies

Showing 1–25 of 54 studies in Brain scans and imaging with an author at University of California, San Francisco (US) (page 1 of 3) · 27,780 in the whole library · How the 0–100 score works

Download bibliography of these 54 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.

Other institutions

From OpenAlex; 13,259 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

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

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

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

Tau PET patterns mirror clinical and neuroanatomical variability in Alzheimer’s disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 68 out of 100. Brain 2016-03-08

Voxel-wise contrasts against controls (at P < 0.05 family-wise error corrected) showed that (18)F-AV1451 and (18)F-FDG patterns in patients with posterior cortical atrophy ('visual variant of Alzheimer's disease', n = 7) specifically targeted the clinically affected posterior brain regions, while (11)C-PiB bound diffusely throughout the neocortex. 5 key findings →

Participants: 20 Evidence: low

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

MRI and CSF biomarkers in normal, MCI, and AD subjects: predicting future clinical change

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 61 out of 100. Neurology 2009-07-01

MRI and CSF provide complimentary predictive information about time to conversion from amnestic mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer disease and combination of the 2 provides better prediction than either source alone. 3 key findings →

Participants: 399 Evidence: low

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

MRI and CSF biomarkers in normal, MCI, and AD subjects: diagnostic discrimination and cognitive correlations

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 60 out of 100. Neurology 2009-07-01

We found no significant correlation between CSF biomarkers and cognitive scores in any of the 3 clinical groups individually. 2 key findings →

Design: cross-sectional Participants: 399 Evidence: low

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

Vascular burden and Alzheimer disease pathologic progression

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 60 out of 100. Neurology 2012-09-12

Increased WMHs are associated with aging, decreased glucose metabolism, and decline in executive function but do not affect AD-specific pathologic progression, suggesting that the vascular contribution to dementia is probably additive although not necessarily independent of the amyloid pathway. 5 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Evidence: moderate

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

ASL perfusion MRI predicts cognitive decline and conversion from MCI to dementia

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 59 out of 100. Alzheimer disease and associated disorders 2010-01-01

We compared the predictive value of cerebral perfusion as measured by arterial-spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL-MRI) with MRI-derived hippocampal volume for determining future cognitive and functional decline and subsequent conversion from mild cognitive impairment to dementia. 3 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Evidence: moderate

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

Staging tau pathology with tau PET in Alzheimer's disease: a longitudinal study

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 59 out of 100. Translational psychiatry 2021-09-18

A biological research framework to define Alzheimer' disease with dichotomized biomarker measurement was proposed by National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer's Association (NIA-AA). 3 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Evidence: moderate

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

18 F-flortaucipir tau positron emission tomography distinguishes established progressive supranuclear palsy from controls and Parkinson disease: A multicenter study

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 57 out of 100. Annals of neurology 2017-10-01

18 F-flortaucipir uptake was elevated in PSP versus controls and PD patients in a pattern consistent with the expected distribution of tau pathology. 3 key findings →

Participants: 33 Evidence: low

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

Pathogenesis of cerebral microbleeds: In vivo imaging of amyloid and subcortical ischemic small vessel disease in 226 individuals with cognitive impairment

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 57 out of 100. Annals of neurology 2013-03-12

Parietal and occipital lobar CMBs counts were higher in PiB(+) ADCI with moderate WMH than PiB(+) ADCI with minimal WMH, whereas PiB(-) patients with SVCI (ie, "pure" SVCI) showed both lobar and deep CMBs. 3 key findings →

Participants: 226 Evidence: moderate

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

AddNeuroMed and ADNI: similar patterns of Alzheimer's atrophy and automated MRI classification accuracy in Europe and North America

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 57 out of 100. NeuroImage 2011-07-01

The European Union AddNeuroMed program and the US-based Alzheimer Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) are two large multi-center initiatives designed to collect and validate biomarker data for Alzheimer's disease (AD). 5 key findings →

Participants: 1,074 Evidence: moderate

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

Comparing 18F-AV-1451 with CSF t-tau and p-tau for diagnosis of Alzheimer disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 56 out of 100. Neurology 2018-01-10

CSF tau and 18 F-AV-1451 have equal performance in early clinical stages of AD, but 18 F-AV-1451 is superior in the dementia stage, and exhibits close to perfect diagnostic performance for mild to moderate AD. 3 key findings →

Participants: 14 Evidence: low

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

Synergistic effects of ischemia and β-amyloid burden on cognitive decline in patients with subcortical vascular mild cognitive impairment

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 55 out of 100. JAMA psychiatry 2014-04-01

Most patients with svMCI do not exhibit substantial amyloid burden, and CVD does not increase β-amyloid burden as measured by amyloid imaging. 5 key findings →

Design: cross-sectional Participants: 95 Evidence: low

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

↑ Change the filters

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 27,780 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 27,780 records, built mostly from automated pulls of Europe PMC (61.1% of the library) and OpenAlex (18.3%), 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 (3.7% 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