The Perry lab is based at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, which is part of the Department of Neurology. The goal of our research is to elucidate brain-behavior relationships in neurodegenerative disease, in order to improve diagnostic certainty and identify therapeutic targets.
Our behavioral research focuses on abnormalities in reward processing in neurodegenerative diseases and mood disorders. Reward processing involves a determination of what an individual will work for or pursue, such as food, money, or social approval. Patients with neurodegenerative and mood disorders have profound changes in their reward valuation. We propose that a greater understanding of reward-seeking behavior in these illnesses and their underlying neural mechanisms will improve diagnostic accuracy and lead to therapeutic targets for behavioral symptoms that currently have no adequate treatment. Our studies of reward processing use behavioral paradigms with tools such as psychophysiology, as well as structural and functional neuroimaging.
In addition, we study factors that influence clinical diagnostic certainty and clinicopathological prediction in neurodegenerative disease, with a particular focus on frontotemporal dementia. Our research seeks to identify clinical, neuropsychological, neuroimaging, serum marker, genetic, and gene expression differences that permit improved predictive certainty from early in the disease course.
