Blood-brain-barrier crossing capacity in antihypertensive drugs and progression
  
   Lead Investigator:    Jean Ho
   Institution      :    University of Southern California
   E-Mail           :    jeanho@usc.edu
   Proposal ID      :    1219



   Proposal Description:
   1) Goals:    (A) To examine the use of antihypertensive medications which can cross the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) and associations with classical Alzheimer?s disease (AD) neuropathological features (neuritic plaques, neurofibrillary tangles) and other individual neuropathological measures (e.g., Braak stage,                   atherosclerosis, etc.)                                                            (B) To examine the use of antihypertensive medications which can cross the BBB and progression to dementia, assessed as (a) clinical dementia diagnoses (all-cause dementia and subtypes), and (b)  autopsy-based neuropathological diagnoses of (i) AD dementia, (ii) vascular dementia (VaD), (iii) mixed AD/VaD  with AD primarily contributing, (iv) mixed VaD/AD with AD primarily contributing, and (v) normal brains with normal cognition during life as a control group. We predict that the use of antihypertensive medications which can cross the BBB will be linked to lower neuropathology and slower progression to dementia, assessed clinically or at autopsy.                                   2) Succinct objectives:                                                           To examine the use of antihypertensive medications which can cross the  blood-brain-barrier (BBB) and associations with AD neuropathological features and progressions to dementia.