The Administrative Core oversees the operation of the University of Kansas Alzheimer's Disease  Research Center (KU ADRC). 

The Administrative Core encourages investigators to utilize KU ADRC resources. We support a diverse spectrum of Alzheimer's disease and brain aging research. To further promote Alzheimer's disease and brain aging research in the Kansas City region, the Administrative Core also offers a Developmental Project Program. 

The role of the Administrative Core is to:

• Develop and oversee the KU ADRC, which supports, facilitates, and advances research on brain aging, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease and disease-related disorders
• Expand the base of clinical, translational and basic science investigators conducting research on brain aging, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease and disease-related disorders at the University of Kansas.

With the aging population, age-related disorders such as dementia are rising in prevalence at an unprecedented rate. Promoting and supporting clinical and translational research into neurodegenerative disorders may lead to important prevention and treatment strategies. The overall goal of the Clinical Core is to provide KU ADRC investigators with access to a well-characterized cohort of research participants with and without dementia. The Clinical Core will continue to emphasize recruiting individuals without dementia and those in the earliest symptomatic stages of AD, including mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

The role of the Clinical Core is to:

• Maintain an active group of research participants, both with and without memory problems, to support cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.
• Support and encourage collaborative and interdisciplinary studies on AD and aging by providing data, biological specimens, and clinical research structure, expertise and support to approved investigations and national data-sharing initiatives.

The Data Management and Statistical (DMS) Core provides support for many KU ADRC activities, such as data collection on the Clinical Cohort, administrative tracking, pilot project development and review, and data management and statistical support for KU ADRC developmental projects. The central focus of this core is managing and maintaining the entire spectrum of study-related information for the Clinical Cohort, as this information is collected across cores and research projects.

This core also supports research on Alzheimer’s disease, brain aging, and other neurodegenerative diseases by providing statistical and informatics expertise for investigators and projects that use the KU ADRC in coordination with the Department of Biostatistics (including the Division of Medical Informatics).

The role of the DMS Core is to:

• Share clinical cohort data with investigators

• Assist investigators with statistical expertise and proper study design, interpretation, and dissemination of study findings

• Develop novel statistical methodology when needed for proper study interpretation

• Maintain the Researcher Resource Data Dictionary (R2D2) and Curated Clinical Cohort Phenotypes and Observations (C3PO). A rich dataset, it is!

The Neuropathology Core collects, characterizes, stores, and distributes brain tissue from Clinical Core autopsy participants, consisting of well-characterized individuals with Alzheimer's disease or related disorders and aged control individuals without neurological disease. This highly annotated brain tissue is provided to committed researchers to support the highest quality research in Alzheimer's, brain aging, and related disorders.

Neuropathology services are also available to assist investigators in studying animal models of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders.

The role of the Neuropathology Core is to:

• Perform diagnostic neuropathological evaluations using standardized protocols on postmortem brains from clinically characterized participants, essential to all related studies of these participants and correlations with other Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers

• Prepare brain tissue for research in Alzheimer's disease, brain aging, and related disorders

• Provide equivalent neuropathologic services to animal-based researchers studying animal models of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders

The Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement (ORE) Core connects community members, healthcare professionals, trainees, and investigators to a variety of resources, including research opportunities, brain health education, provider training, and caregiving support.

The role of the Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Core is to:

• Create a network of people interested in brain health to share the most current resources, education, and research opportunities.
• Promote and support studies and events by developing custom materials, such as flyers, social media, communications, and specific engagement and recruitment strategies.
• Increase knowledge of Alzheimer's and related dementias, brain health, and the KU ADRC in the public and academic communities.

Our Core facilitates state‑of‑the‑art MRI, PET, and neurovascular imaging to accelerate discoveries in Alzheimer’s disease, brain aging, and related neurodegenerative disorders. A secure, BIDS‑formatted data ecosystem, high‑performance computing, and expert analytic support empower investigators to integrate imaging with genetics, biomarkers, and clinical phenotypes, fueling research across the Midwest and the greater ADRC network.

Our multidisciplinary team provides personalized study design, subsidized scan time, and hands‑on training. De‑identified MRI, PET, and Neurovascular imaging datasets from our Clinical Cohort are readily shareable, and we welcome collaboration through streamlined data‑request and consultation portals.

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We offer standardized processing and metrics for:

• MRI: T1 structural, FLAIR, high‑res hippocampal, ASL perfusion, QSM/SWI, DTI white‑matter, resting‑state & task fMRI including volumes, thickness, sulcal depth, gyrification index, fractal dimension, white matter lesion, tract-based diffusion measures, cerebral blood flow SUVR, hippocampal subregion volumes, and microhemorrhage information.
• PET: Amyloid (Florbetaben/Florbetapir), Tau, FDG‑glucose, including SUVR and centiloid data
• Neurovascular & Fitness: Transcranial Doppler, dynamic cerebral autoregulation, beat‑to‑beat BP/CO₂, arterial stiffness, sub‑max fitness testing including MCA/pulse wave velocity and pulse index.
• Neurogenetics: Imaging-linked genetic data and omics analysis support
• Integrated data management, analysis pipelines, imaging-centric machine learning, statistical support, and training for investigators.

Mitochondrial dysfunction may represent one of the key cellular pathologies in AD and may be intimately related to its progression. Defective metabolism and increased generation of excess reactive oxygen species in mitochondria, as widely observed in Alzheimer's cases, can lead to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) oxidative modification and likely increases in rates of mtDNA mutations. Such molecular changes can enhance the mitochondrial and cellular pathology, especially in populations of neurons selectively vulnerable to oxidative stress.

The Biomarker Core of the KU Alzheimer's Disease Research Center was structured to provide unique resources and expertise to investigators who plan to probe mitochondrial changes in Alzheimer's disease and unravel the relationships between Alzheimer's and altered mitochondrial metabolism in white blood cells, platelets, neurons, glia, and muscle cells.

The role of the Biomarker Core is to:

Biomarker Core will assist investigators in studies on mitochondria obtained from the brain, muscle, white blood cells, and platelets of well-characterized cases of Alzheimer's, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and age-matched controls.  Specifically, Biomarker offers the following core resources and expertise for ADRC investigators:

• Preparation, cataloging, and storage of mitochondria, protein extracts, DNA, and RNA from living and deceased subjects recruited by the Clinical Core
• Preparation and banking of cybrid lines using neuronal and platelet mitochondria obtained from living participants
• Sequencing of mtDNA, determination of levels of mtDNA heteroplasmy, and measurements of mtDNA oxidation