Drs. Vivek Prabhakaran, Alan McMillan, and Veena Nair Receive NIH-NIA Funding for Delirium and Dementia Study

Posted on February 2020

Vivek Prabhakaran
Dr. Vivek Prabhakaran
Alan McMillan
Dr. Alan McMillan
Dr. Veena Nair

UWSMPH Department of Radiology Associate Professor Vivek Prabhakaran, MD, PhD, Associate Professor Alan McMillan, PhD, and Senior Scientist Veena Nair, PhD, are co-Is on a multidisciplinary 5-year project that recently received $3.6 million NIH-NIA R01 funding. The project, led by UW Department of Anesthesiology’s Assistant Professor Robert Sanders, MD, PhD, will clarify the overlapping pathology of Delirium and Dementia. The long-term goal of this study is to characterize postoperative delirium using MRI, PET, EEG, and neuropsychological measures and to predict which patients develop Dementia. The R01 project will be using the WIMR PET/MRI scanner, a unique resource, as it allows acquisition of simultaneous MRI and PET data. Radiology R&D funds and the PI’s K23 award were helpful in obtaining preliminary data from the WIMR PET/MRI scanner for the successful R01 grant submission.