Alzheimer's disease is a devastating aging-related brain disease, that is the most common cause of cognitive deterioration and functional decline.
Recent evidence indicate that the disease develops in the brain approximately two decades before clinical presentation of dementia.
Also, advance in research indicates that the brain is not isolated from the rest of the body, but rather that the development of brain pathology in Alzheimer's disease is highly affected by the systemic milieu.
There are several systemic risk factors for development of Alzheimer's disease, including sleep disturbances, associated with metabolic disorders, and chronic periodontitis, associated with an infectious and inflammatory condition.

In this project we are studying for the first time the systemic immunologic and metabolic changes that drive the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease early in its course, before development of dementia.
This is enabled by novel technology that identifies patients at the pre-symptomatic phase, who are at high risk for developing dementia within the next several years.
Specifically, we are screening patients who suffer from sleep disturbances and from chronic Periodontitis, to identify those who are at the pre-symptomatic phase of Alzheimer's disease. By using state-of-the-art multi-Omics to characterize the immune and metabolic states, and by using advanced computational analysis to integrate these characteristics with clinical, genetic, and microbial data, we will identify the systemic fingerprints of pre-symptomatic Alzheimer's disease that drive disease pathogenesis.

This study may lead to identification of novel therapeutic targets, aimed at preventing the development of dementia in the (still-healthy) at-risk population, in a personalized manner.