$78,000 awarded to Dr. Isabelle Lajoie, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Mahsa Dadar’s lab at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre, McGill University.
Previous imaging studies have uncovered changes in certain brain regions of people living with ALS. The extent and location of these changes, however, can differ significantly from person to person. This has led researchers to question whether the variability in brain atrophy patterns is linked to the diversity in symptoms often observed in people with ALS, such as age of onset, disease duration, cognitive changes, and more. If such a link exists, measuring these brain changes could provide a non-invasive way for health care professionals to monitor disease progression more accurately and possibly even predict future clinical symptoms and survival outcomes.
Deformation-based morphometry (DBM) is a sensitive method for quantifying changes in various brain regions using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). With this award, Dr. Lajoie will take advantage of a comprehensive dataset collected through the Canadian ALS Neuroimaging Consortium (CALSNIC) to investigate the relationship between DBM measurements and clinical symptoms. With the help of artificial intelligence, she hopes to uncover complex patterns in the data that otherwise may have remained undetectable and explore whether DBM has potential in predicting the course of the disease.
Through this work, Dr. Lajoie seeks to identify a much-needed non-invasive biomarker for ALS, which could change how healthcare professionals monitor and track the disease. The information gained will deepen our understanding of the mechanisms underlying disease progression, clinical symptoms, and survival, ultimately advancing our ability to effectively manage the disease.