Laura Ekblad
MD, PhD
Areas of expertise
positron emission tomography; Alzheimer´s Disease; Insulin resistance; cognition; memory disorders
positron emission tomography; Alzheimer´s Disease; Insulin resistance; cognition; memory disorders
Research community or research topic
Specialist in Geriatrics and Family Medicine. Senior researcher, Turku Alzheimer Imaging Group, Turku PET Centre.
Specialist in Geriatrics and Family Medicine. Senior researcher, Turku Alzheimer Imaging Group, Turku PET Centre.
Research
My research focuses on early risk factors for memory disorders, especially Alzheimer´s disease. I am particularly interested in the associations between metabolic risk factors (insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, obesity) and cognitive decline.
Our lab uses multimodal neuroimaging (PET-imaging, MRI) combined with blood and CSF biomarkers and cognitive testing to explore the association between different risk factors and early cerebral changes of memory disorders.
I also run a project that examines possible cardiac side effects of anti-dementia agents in elderly memory clinic patients.
Teaching
Publications 
1 of 2
- Enhancing dementia prediction: A 19-year validation of the CAIDE risk score with insulin resistance and APOE ε4 integration in a population-based cohort (2025)
- The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease as a predictor of cognitive performance: An 11-year population-based follow-up study (2025)
- Digestive and Liver Disease
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Neuroinflammation in Parkinson’s disease : A study with [11C]PBR28 PET and cerebrospinal fluid markers (2025)
- Parkinsonism and Related Disorders
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Blood biomarkers of neurodegeneration associate differently with amyloid deposition, medial temporal atrophy, and cerebrovascular changes in APOE ε4-enriched cognitively unimpaired elderly (2024)
- Alzheimer's Research and Therapy
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Cognitively healthy APOE4/4 carriers show white matter impairment associated with serum NfL and amyloid-PET (2024)
- Neurobiology of Disease
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Midlife insulin resistance, APOE genotype, and change in late-life brain beta-amyloid accumulation : A 5-year follow-up [11C]PIB-PET study (2024)
- Neurobiology of Disease
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - SV2A PET shows hippocampal synaptic loss in cognitively unimpaired APOE ε4/ε4 homozygotes (2024)
- Alzheimer's and Dementia
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - APOE ε4 gene dose effect on imaging and blood biomarkers of neuroinflammation and beta-amyloid in cognitively unimpaired elderly (2023)
- Alzheimer's Research and Therapy
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - EKG-löydökset vaikeuttavat muistisairauden lääkehoitoa (2023)
- Lääkärilehti
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Head-to-head comparison of plasma p-tau181, p-tau231 and glial fibrillary acidic protein in clinically unimpaired elderly with three levels of APOE4-related risk for Alzheimer's disease (2023)
- Neurobiology of Disease
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Impaired Early Insulin Response to Glucose Load Predicts Episodic Memory Decline: A 10-Year Population-Based Cohort Follow-Up of 45-74-Year-Old Men and Women (2023)
- Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Insulin resistance and body mass index are associated with TSPO PET in cognitively unimpaired elderly (2023)
- Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - ASIC-E4: Interplay of Beta-Amyloid, Synaptic Density and Neuroinflammation in Cognitively Normal Volunteers With Three Levels of Genetic Risk for Late-Onset Alzheimer's Disease - Study Protocol and Baseline Characteristics (2022)
- Frontiers in Neurology
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Association of Midlife Inflammatory Markers With Cognitive Performance at 10-Year Follow-up (2022)
- Neurology
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Iäkkäiden muistisairaudet tarvitsevat erikoisosaajia (2022)
- Lääkärilehti
(D1 Article in a professional journal) - Insulin Resistance and the Brain-Novel Insights Combining Metabolic Research and Neuroscience (2022)
- Metabolites
(B1 Non-refereed article in a scientific journal) - Neuropsykologiset tehtäväsarjat Alzheimerin taudin prekliinisen vaiheen hienoisen kognitiivisen heikentymisen havaitsemisessa (2022)
- Duodecim
(A2 Refereed review article in a scientific journal ) - Prevalence Estimates of Amyloid Abnormality Across the Alzheimer Disease Clinical Spectrum (2022)
- JAMA Neurology
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Association of Early β-Amyloid Accumulation and Neuroinflammation Measured With [11C]PBR28 in Elderly Individuals Without Dementia (2021)
- Neurology
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Brain Glucose Metabolism in Health, Obesity, and Cognitive Decline-Does Insulin Have Anything to Do with It? A Narrative Review (2021)
- Journal of Clinical Medicine
(A2 Refereed review article in a scientific journal )
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