PI: Kishore Kuchibhotla, PhD (Assistant Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences | Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience)
Co-Is: Marilyn Albert, Milap Nowrangi, and Hannah P. Cowley
More than 5 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in the US alone with additional, untold impacts on caregivers. An astonishing, yet underappreciated, aspect of AD are the moment-to-moment fluctuations in cognitive ability, including ‘positive’ periods of uncharacteristically coherent communication and cognitive abilities. These ‘episodes of lucidity’ are rare, unpredictable and yet undeniably precious. Interestingly, context may play a critical role in triggering improvements in cognition. For example, a nostalgic smell or a wedding song can elicit periods of heightened cognition even for patients deep in cognitive decline. This suggests the brain still has cognitive capacity in reserve despite being rarely accessible. Can these hidden abilities be unlocked? Here, we aim to develop a mobile technology platform to integrate psychometric tests, wearable health sensors, and caregiver reports to collect multidimensional data regarding the features and predictors of cognitive fluctuations. Using machine learning and data mining, we aim to exploit these insights to improve cognition on-demand.
Dr. Kishore Kuchibhotla is an Assistant Professor in Psychological & Brain Sciences, Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He is an expert in Alzheimer’s disease and the neuroscience of learning and memory. In addition, he has extensive experience in industry working on developing novel solutions for healthcare-related challenges.
