WeCureALZ

One symptom of Alzheimer’s that has been known since the discovery of the disease is reduced blood flow to the brain, but until now, nobody knew why. That is why this aspect of the disease, which likely contributes to cognitive problems and accelerates injury to brain cells, has remained untreated.

New specialized imaging techniques have allowed Cornell University researchers to discover a potential cause of the reduced blood flow. This suggests new treatment approaches that could slow progression of the disease to delay, or even prevent, the onset of symptoms, and possibly restore some cognitive function when symptoms are present.

However, understanding the molecular basis of the process, and homing in on the specific pharmaceutical targets using current methods could take decades, limited primarily by the need for extensive manual image analysis. Crowdsourcing this analysis to citizen scientists could reduce that time to just a few years.