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Dr Colin Groot
Name:
Dr Colin Groot
Job Title:
Assistant Professor
Place of work / study:
Amsterdam University Medical Center
Area of Research:
I primarily focus on tau-PET and structural MRI in Alzheimer’s disease
How is your work funded:
By Dutch non-profit organisations
Tell us a little about yourself:
I have an educational background in both neuropsychology and neuroscience and my PhD focused on consolidating findings concerning clinical differences between individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) with variations in the neurobiological manifestation of the disease, captured with neuroimaging. A primary focus herein has been the assessment of state-of-the-art neuroimaging methods, and combining cross-sectional and longitudinal voxel-based morphometry on structural MRI, FDG-PET and tau-PET. In my postdoctoral work, I have combined CSF and PET measures of tau to capture the earliest phases of tau pathology, and I performed head-to-head comparisons between novel and established measures of hyperphosphorylated tau.
Furthermore, I investigate the relative merits of neuroimaging modalities to predict future clinical progression, and I am currently working on the largest subject-level meta-analysis of tau-PET positivity, including ~30 centers from across the globe in order to attain prevalence estimates of tau-PET positivity and the effects of common covariates on this prevalence. In other lines of research, I have also focused on integrating cognitive measures with neuroimaging and genetics in the context of cognitive reserve and other protective factors against dementia (e.g. APOEe2). This research was mainly focused on assessing how certain individuals are able to resist more pathology than others, and what the role of genetic protective factors could be in providing resilience.
I also serve on the committee of the ISTAART Atypical Alzheimer’s Disease PIA.
Tell us a fun fact about yourself:
My home office is also my wardrobe
Why did you choose to work in dementia:
In the first place, the complexity of the pathology that underly dementia intrigued me. Over the the years, the devastating impact dementia has on my own family and the patients that visit our memory clinic has cemented my motivation to work in this field
What single piece of of advice would you give to an early career researcher?
Try to enjoy writing papers as much as possible, further on in your career you have less and less time to write yourself
What book are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
A place beyond courage – Elizabeth Chadwick. I can certainly recommend it to anyone interested in the middle ages
Favourite film of all time?
Lord of the Rings
Favourite ways to unplug and unwind?
Sitting by a campfire
