The Administrative Core provides the leadership, coordination, and oversight that keep the USC ADRC moving toward its scientific goals. This core guides the Center’s overall direction, manages resources and regulatory requirements, and helps ensure that each ADRC Core works together effectively.
The Administrative Core also supports collaboration across USC and with national Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias research initiatives. Through mentorship, development projects, seminars, and public education, the core helps advance new research, train emerging scientists, and strengthen the ADRC’s impact locally and nationally.
The Biomarker Core helps researchers better understand Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias by collecting, analyzing, and sharing biological samples, including blood, plasma, cerebrospinal fluid, and DNA. These samples can reveal important clues about disease risk, progression, diagnosis, and potential treatment targets.
The core supports studies focused on vascular, genetic, inflammatory, metabolic, and other biological factors that may influence brain health and cognitive decline. By connecting biospecimens with clinical, imaging, and genetic data, the Biomarker Core helps accelerate discovery at USC and through national and international collaborations.
The Clinical Core works directly with research participants to collect the careful clinical information needed to understand Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias over time. The core follows participants longitudinally, helping researchers study changes in memory, thinking, health, biomarkers, and brain structure.
The Clinical Core also maintains a registry of people interested in participating in research and supports studies across USC and national research networks. Through this work, the core helps connect participants with research opportunities while building the high-quality data needed to improve diagnosis, prevention, and treatment.
The Data Management and Statistical Core helps turn complex research information into reliable, useful knowledge. The core manages ADRC data, supports secure and organized data sharing, and provides statistical expertise for study design, analysis, interpretation, and publication.
By integrating clinical, imaging, biomarker, neuropathology, and other research data, the core enables investigators to ask deeper questions about Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. It also supports national data-sharing efforts and provides training in study design, statistics, and informatics for researchers and trainees.
The Imaging Core provides the advanced brain imaging expertise needed to study Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in living participants. The core supports high-quality MRI and PET imaging, standardized imaging protocols, image quality control, and advanced analysis.
Through expertise in structural, functional, vascular, and ultra-high-field 7T MRI, as well as PET imaging, the Imaging Core helps researchers visualize changes in the brain that may be linked to disease risk, progression, and resilience. The core also supports collaborative studies and trains investigators in modern neuroimaging methods.
The Neuropathology Core studies donated brain and nervous system tissue to provide the most definitive information about Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. By examining tissue after death, researchers can better understand the biological changes that occur in the brain and how they relate to memory loss, cognitive decline, and other symptoms.
The core maintains a large and valuable tissue bank that supports research at USC and beyond. It also helps connect pathology findings with clinical, genetic, biomarker, and imaging data, giving scientists a more complete picture of disease mechanisms and progression.
The Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Core connects the USC ADRC with participants, caregivers, health care providers, and communities across Los Angeles County. Serving as a bilingual and bicultural resource, the core helps make Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias research more accessible, inclusive, and responsive to community needs.
The core supports education, recruitment, and long-term engagement through community partnerships, participant registries, and outreach programs. Its work helps ensure that ADRC research reflects the diversity of Los Angeles and that community members have opportunities to learn about brain health, aging, dementia, and research participation.
The Research Education Component prepares the next generation of scientists to advance Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias research. Through mentorship, training, development project support, and access to ADRC resources, the program helps early-career researchers build strong foundations for independent scientific careers.
Trainees gain experience working across disciplines such as medicine, neuropsychology, imaging, biostatistics, genetics, gerontology, and informatics. By supporting emerging investigators, the Research Education Component strengthens the future of dementia research at USC and beyond.