Clinico-Pathologic-Genetic-Imaging Study of Neurodegenerative and Related Disorders

Clinico-Pathologic-Genetic-Imaging Study of Neurodegenerative and Related Disorders

The investigators aim to learn more about symptoms suggestive of a neurodegenerative process.

The investigators will recruit participants with symptoms suggestive of a neurodegenerative and/or related disease. Participants could be evaluated on a yearly basis, undergoing a baseline visit and possible follow-up evaluations with an interval of one year. At each visit, participants could undergo any combination of the following based on their symptoms and complaints: a neurological assessment, a speech/language assessment, a neuropsychometric assessment, an MRI, an FDG PET/CT scan, a PiB PET/CT scan, a Tau PET/CT scan and/or a C-11 ER176 PET/CT scan. All participants will be asked to provide a blood sample to allow for future genetic studies.

Inclusion Criteria:

• All participants will be over the age of 21
• Have symptoms suggestive of a neurodegenerative and/or related disorder

Exclusion Criteria:

• Participants will be excluded if they have any concurrent illnesses that could account for all of their symptoms, such as traumatic brain injury, encephalitis, strokes or developmental syndromes
• Women that are pregnant or post-partum and breast-feeding will be excluded
• Participants will be excluded if they have any of the following genetic conditions which can increase the chance of cancer: Cowden disease, Lynch syndrome, Hypogammaglobulinemia, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome and Down's syndrome
• Participants will be excluded if MRI is contraindicated (metal in head, cardiac pace maker, etc), if there is severe claustrophobia, if there are conditions that may confound brain imaging studies (e.g. structural abnormalities, including subdural hematoma, intracranial neoplasm or large cortical infarcts)
• Participants will be excluded if they are medically unstable or are on medications that might affect brain structure or metabolism (e.g. chemotherapy)