Dementia Neuroscience Lab
Translational dementia & cognitive neuroscience research
Behavioral neurology, systems neuroscience, and rural dementia care come together here—linking biomarker manifolds, Express Dementia Care, and clinical AI to close the loop from research advances to clinical care.
Co-Directors
Dr. Khushboo Verma & Dr. Satwant Kumar
Translational dementia & cognitive neuroscience research.
Automated lesion mapping
First automated segmentation model trained on a large multicentric dataset
Express Dementia Care
Developing the first express dementia care center model in East Texas
Global AI consortium
Led 21 physicians across 7 countries to validate an AI physician assistant
Core Pillars
From biomarkers to implementation
Three tightly linked programs drive how we connect systems neuroscience discoveries with real-world dementia care.
Integrated Biomarkers
Psychometrics, PET & Cortical Biomarkers
Longitudinal modeling of OASIS-3 MRI, amyloid PET, and psychometry to understand how distributed cortical and subcortical systems preserve—or lose—cognitive function across the dementia spectrum.
- •Psychometrics and Aβ-PET jointly stratify clinical dementia severity (AAN 2023; Neurology 100(17_supplement_2):0104).
- •First automated segmentation model trained on a large multicentric dataset enables voxel-based lesion–symptom mapping (Diagnostics 12:2055, 2022).
Care Pathways
Express Dementia Care & Rural Health Equity
Closed-loop Express Dementia Care (EDCC) model that shortens diagnostic timelines, supports caregivers, and surfaces health-system gaps in anti-amyloid access for rural East Texas populations.
- •EDCC pilot demonstrates faster diagnosis and caregiver support via rural clinic triage loops (AAN 2026 submissions).
- •Health disparities analyses quantify infusion-readiness gaps for anti-amyloid therapies across East Texas clinics.
Systems & AI
Systems Neuroscience, AI & Decision Support
Combining primate systems neuroscience with AI-driven clinical tools, from large-scale lesion-symptom mapping to ExpertMedQA and BooksMed for neurology decision support.
- •Led an international consortium of 21 physicians across 7 countries to validate ExpertMedQA / BooksMed (AAN 2024; Neurology 102(7_supplement_1):3830).
- •Inverse-graphics and optogenetic systems neuroscience studies (PNAS 2025; eLife 2022) inform algorithm design for clinical AI.
Featured Work
Flagship research & implementation projects
Selected collaborations spanning biomarker science, health disparities, and systems neuroscience.
ExpertMedQA & BooksMed Clinical AI
International consortium validating an AI physician assistant that outperforms Med-PaLM 2, Almanac, and GPT models on expert neurology scenarios.
Psychometrics + Aβ-PET Severity Mapping
OASIS-3 PET, MRI, and neuropsychological integration to quantify continuous dementia severity and predict decline trajectories.
Voxel-Based Lesion–Symptom Mapping for Stroke
Automatic lesion segmentation (Diagnostics 2022) powering large-scale lesion–symptom mapping with Dell Medical School collaborators.
Express Dementia Care & Anti-Amyloid Equity
Closed-loop EDCC pathway assessing diagnostic readiness, infusion capacity, and caregiver support for rural East Texas clinics.