Alzheimer's Disease & CAA

One of the most prevalent manifestations of progressive neurodegenerative disorders in Western societies is dementia. The most common form is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with progressive cerebral accumulation of the extracellular amyloid beta (Aß) protein. Therapeutic options for AD are virtually absent, in part because most dementias can only be diagnosed with certainty at autopsy.

Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy

Apart from the parenchymal accumulation of amyloid beta, this same peptide also frequently aggregated in the walls of small brain arterioles, named cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). CAA causes vascular dysfunction which independently contributes to cognitive decline. The vessel wall weakens due to the amyloid accumulation, resulting in microbleeds and clinical strokes, which are often fatal. At LUMC, we are particularly focusing on this vascular amyloid accumulation because CAA is not just a disease of old age, but also occurs in a severe hereditary form. This disease, hereditary cerebral amyloid angiopathy – Dutch type (HCHWA-D), commonly known as Katwijk Disease is geographically and historically linked to LUMC and forms a particular research focus of our lab.

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Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy

Apart from the parenchymal accumulation of amyloid beta, this same peptide also frequently aggregated in the walls of small brain arterioles, named cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). CAA causes vascular dysfunction which independently contributes to cognitive decline. The vessel wall weakens due to the amyloid accumulation, resulting in microbleeds and clinical strokes, which are often fatal. At LUMC, we are particularly focusing on this vascular amyloid accumulation because CAA is not just a disease of old age, but also occurs in a severe hereditary form. This disease, hereditary cerebral amyloid angiopathy – Dutch type (HCHWA-D), commonly known as Katwijk Disease is geographically and historically linked to LUMC and forms a particular research focus of our lab.

Our research program consists of two parts:

  1. Development of in vivo imaging techniques to detect amyloid aggregates in disease models and ultimately in humans.
  2. Development of potential therapies for CAA (and AD).

Projects

Research consortia and collaborations

We are currently collaborating in several national and EU programs. CVON-HBC (cardiovascular onderzoek Nederland)  is a large consortium focusing on the relation between (cardio)vascular pathology and cognition together with AMC. PAGE-AD, a Memorabel program focussing on high field MRI and pathological differentiation between conventional and parietal lobe AD, together with VUMC and the Netherlands Brain Bank. Bioimage-NMD is an EU consortium focused on advanced diffusion imaging techniques in muscle pathology. 

Key publications

Our team

Dr.ir. Louise van der Weerd
Principal investigator / Associate Professor

Prof.dr. Willeke M.C. van Roon-Mom
Principal investigator / Professor Translational Studies of Neurodegenerative

Ernst Suidgeest (RADI)
Research technician

Boyd Kenkhuis (RADI)
Researcher

Sanny Scheffer (RADI)
Researcher

Whitney M. Freeze (RADI)
Researcher

Sabine Voigt (NEURO)
PhD student