Stanford Aging & Memory Study (SAMS)

The Stanford Aging and Memory Study (SAMS) is a longitudinal study of memory and brain health in human aging. The current SAMS cohort consists of ~200 older adults who completed a baseline study involving high-resolution imaging (3T functional MRI and 7T structural MRI), biofluid measurements (cerebrospinal fluid, blood plasma), and cognitive tests of memory and thinking abilities. The goal of this research is to advance our understanding of cognitive and brain aging and to identify novel biological markers to improve early detection of Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2022, we launched the SAMS longitudinal study, inviting our volunteers to return ~7 years after their initial visits. This follow-up study includes repetition of all previously collected measures, as well as a Tau PET scan to characterize early accumulation of tau protein in the aging brain. Studying the same individuals over time provides a powerful approach to identify which measures at baseline best predict future change in memory and brain health. Enrollment for the SAMS longitudinal study is still underway.

SAMS is also recruiting new participants! 

• For participants in AMASS/Purdon Lab studies, participating in SAMS would only involve 1 visit (a functional MRI scan).
• For new participants, SAMS would involve 3-4 visits to Stanford University to complete a blood draw, a Tau PET scan, cognitive tests assessing memory and thinking, and a functional MRI scan to measure brain function during memory encoding and retrieval. 
• If you are interested in participating, please contact Isha Sai at agingstudy [at] stanford.edu (agingstudy[at]stanford[dot]edu) or (650) 725-8915.

Papers

• Wilson, E. Umans, J., Swarovski, M., Minhas, P., Midttun, Ø., Ulvik, A. A., Shahid-Besanti, M., Linortner, P., Mhatre, S., Wang, Q., Channappa, D., Corso, N., Tian, L., Fredericks, C., Kerchner, G., Plowey, E., Cholerton, B., Ueland, P., Zabetian, C., Gray, N., Quinn, J., Montine, T., Sha, S., Longo, F., Wolk, D., Chen-Plotkin, A., Henderson, V., Wyss-Coray, T., Wagner, A., Mormino, E., Aghaeepour, N., Poston, K., Andreasson, K., Mendiola, J. (2025). (in press). Parkinson’s disease is characterized by vitamin B6-dependent inflammatory kynurenine pathway dysfunction. npj Parkinson's Disease. 
• Oh, H. SH., Urey, D. Y., Karlsson, L., Zhu, Z., Shen, Y., Farinas, A., Timsina, J., Duggan, M. R., Chen, J., Guldner, I. H., Morshed, N., Yang, C., Western, D., Ali, M., Le Guen, Y., Trelle, A., Herukka, SK., Rauramaa, T., Hiltunen, M., Lipponen, A., Luikku, A. J., Poston, K. L., Mormino, E., Wagner, A. D., Wilson, E. N., Channappa, D., Leinonen, V., Stevens, B., Ehrenberg, A. J., Gottesman, R. F., Coresh, J., Walker, K. A., Zetterberg, H., Bennett, D. A., Franzmeier, N., Hansson, O., Cruchaga, C., Wyss-Coray, T. (2025). A cerebrospinal fluid synaptic protein biomarker for prediction of cognitive resilience versus decline in Alzheimer’s disease. Nature Medicine, 1-12. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03565-2  PDF 
• Trelle, A. N., Young, C. B., Vossler, H., Ramos Benitez, J., Cody, K. A., Mendiola, J. H., Swarovski, M. S., Le Guen, Y., Feinstein, I., Butler III, R. R., Channappa, D., Romero, A., Park, J., Shahid-Besanti, M., Corso, N. K., Chau, K., Smith, A. N., Skylar-Scott, I., Yutsis, M. V., Fredericks, C. A., Tian, L., Younes, K., Kerchner, G. A., Deutsch, G. K., Davidzon, G. A., Sha, S. J., Henderson, V. W., Longo, F. M., Greicius, M. D., Wyss-Coray, T., Andreasson, K. I., Poston, K. L., Wagner, A. D., Mormino, E. C., Wilson, E. N. (2025). Plasma Aβ42/Aβ40 is sensitive to early cerebral amyloid accumulation and predicts risk of cognitive decline across the Alzheimer's disease spectrum. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 21(2), e14442. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.14442 PDF
• Winer, J. R., Vossler, H., Young, C. B., Smith, V., Romero, A., Shahid-Besanti, M., Abdelnour, C., Wilson, E. N., Anders, D., Morales, A. P., Andreasson, K. I., Yutsis, M. V., Henderson, V. W., Davidzon, G. A., Mormino, E. C., Poston, K. L. (2025). 18F-PI-2620 Tau PET is associated with cognitive and motor impairment in Lewy body disease, Brain Communications, 7(1), fcae458. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcae458 PDF
• Young, C. B., Vossler, H., Romero, A., Smith, V., Park, J., Trelle, A. N., Winer, J. R., Wilson, E. N., Zeineh, M. M., Sha, S. J., Khalighi, M., Yutsis, M. V., Morales, A. P., Anders, D., Zaharchuk, G., Henderson, V. W., Andreasson, K. I., Wagner, A. D., Poston, K. L., Davidzon, G. A., Mormino, E. C. (2024). [18F]PI-2620 Tau PET signal across the aging and Alzheimer’s disease clinical spectrum. Imaging Neuroscience 2024; 2 1–16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/imag_a_00329 PDF
• Moein Taghavi, H., Karimpoor, M., van Staalduinen, E. K., Young, C. B., Georgiadis, M., Leventis, S., Carlson, M., Romero, A., Trelle, A., Vossler, H., Yutsis, M., Rosenberg, J., Davidzon, G. A., Zaharchuk, G., Poston, K., Wagner, A. D., Henderson, V. W., Mormino, E., Zeineh, M. (2024). Elevated tau in the piriform cortex in Alzheimer's but not Parkinson's disease using PET‐MR. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, 16(4), e70040. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/dad2.70040 PDF
• Rutledge, J., Lehallier, B., Zarifkar, P., Losada, P. M., Shahid-Besanti, M., Western, D., Gorijala, P., Ryman, S., Yutsis, M., Deutsch, G. K., Mormino, E., Trelle, A., Wagner, A. D., Kerchner, G. A., Tian, L., Cruchaga, C., Henderson, V. W., Montine, T. J., Borghammer, P., Wyss-Coray, T., Poston, K. L. (2024). Comprehensive proteomics of CSF, plasma, and urine identify DDC and other biomarkers of early Parkinson’s disease. Acta neuropathologica, 147(1), 52. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00401-024-02706-0 PDF
• Johns, E., Vossler, H. A., Young, C. B., Carlson, M. L., Winer, J. R., Younes, K., Park, J., Rathmann-Bloch, J., Smith, V., Harrison, T. M., Landau, S., Henderson, V., Wagner, A., Sha, S. J., Zeineh, M., Zaharchuk, G., Poston, K. L., Davidzon, G. A., Mormino, E. C. (2024). Florbetaben amyloid PET acquisition time: Influence on Centiloids and interpretation. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 20(8), 5299-5310. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.13893 PDF
• Chemparathy, A., Le Guen, Y., Zeng, Y., Gorzynski, J., Jensen, T. D., Yang, C., Kasireddy, N., Talozzi, L., Belloy, M., Stewart, I., Gitler, A. D., Wagner, A. D., Mormino, E., Henderson, V. W., Wyss-Coray, T., Ashley, E., Cruchaga, C., Greicius, M. D. (2024). A 3′ UTR insertion is a candidate causal variant at the TMEM106B locus associated with increased risk for FTLD-TDP. Neurology: Genetics, 10(1), e200124. doi: https://doi.org/10.1212/NXG.0000000000200124 PDF
• Abiose, O., Rutledge, J., Moran‐Losada, P., Belloy, M. E., Wilson, E. N., He, Z., Trelle, A. N., Channappa, D., Romero, A., Park, J., Yutsis, M. V., Sha, S. J., Andreasson, K. I., Poston, K. L., Henderson, V. W., Wagner, A. D., Wyss-Coray, T., Mormino, E. C. (2024). Post‐translational modifications linked to preclinical Alzheimer's disease–related pathological and cognitive changes. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 20(3), 1851-1867. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.13576 PDF
• Oh, H. S. H., Rutledge, J., Nachun, D., Pálovics, R., Abiose, O., Moran-Losada, P., Channappa, D., Urey, D. Y., Kim, K., Sung, Y.J., Wang, L., Timsina, J., Western, D., Liu, M., Kohlfeld, P., Budde, J., Wilson, E. N., Guen, Y., Maurer, T. M., Haney, M., Yang, A. C., He, Z., Greicius, M. D., Andreasson, K. I., Sathyan, S., Weiss, E. F., Milman, S., Barzilai, N., Cruchaga, C., Wagner, A. D., Mormino, E., Lehallier, B., Henderson, V. W., Longo, F. M., Montgomery, S. B., Wyss-Coray, T. (2023). Organ aging signatures in the plasma proteome track health and disease. Nature, 624(7990), 164-172. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06802-1 PDF
• Chen, K. T., Tesfay, R., Koran, M. E. I., Ouyang, J., Shams, S., Young, C. B., Davidzon, G., Liang, T., Khalighi, M., Mormino, E., Zaharchuk, G. (2023). Generative adversarial network–enhanced ultra-low-dose [18F]-PI-2620 τ PET/MRI in aging and neurodegenerative populations. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 44(9), 1012-1019. doi: https://doi.org/10.3174/ajnr.A7961 PDF
• Wilson, E. N., Young, C. B., Ramos Benitez, J., Swarovski, M. S., Feinstein, I., Vandijck, M., Le Guen, Y., Kasireddy, N. M., Shahid, M., Corso, N. K., Wang, Q., Kennedy, G., Trelle, A. N., Lind, B., Channappa, D., Belnap, M., Ramirez, V., Skylar-Scott, I., Younes, K., Yutsis, M. V., Le Bastard, N., Quinn, J. F., van Dyck, C. H., Nairn, A., Fredericks, C. A., Tian, L., Kerchner, G. A., Montine, T. J., Sha, S. J., Davidzon, G., Henderson, V. W., Longo, F. M., Greicius, M. D., Wagner, A. D., Wyss-Coray, T., Poston, K. L., Mormino, E. C., Andreasson, K. I. (2022). Performance of a fully-automated Lumipulse plasma phospho-tau181 assay for Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer's Research & Therapy, 14(1), 172. doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13195-022-01116-2 PDF
• Piehl, N., van Olst, L., Ramakrishnan, A., Teregulova, V., Simonton, B., Zhang, Z., Tapp, E., Channappa, D., Oh, H., Losada, P. M., Rutledge, J., Trelle, A. N., Mormino, E. C., Elahi, F., Galasko, D. R., Henderson, V. W., Wagner, A. D., Wyss-Coray, T., Gate, D. (2022). Cerebrospinal fluid immune dysregulation during healthy brain aging and cognitive impairment. Cell, 185(26), 5028-5039. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.11.019 PDF
• Choi, E. Y., Tian, L., Su, J. H., Radovan, M. T., Tourdias, T., Tran, T. T., Trelle, A. N., Mormino, E., Wagner, A. D., Rutt, B. K. (2022). Thalamic nuclei atrophy at high and heterogenous rates during cognitively unimpaired human aging. Neuroimage, 262, 119584. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119584 PDF
• Trelle, A. N., Carr, V. A., Wilson, E. N., Swarovski, M. S., Hunt, M. P., Toueg, T. N., Tran, T. T., Channappa, D., Corso, N. K., Thieu, M. K., Jayakumar, M., Nadiadwala, A., Guo, W., Tanner, N. J., Bernstein, J. D., Litovsky, C. P., Guerin, S. A., Khazenzon, A. M., Harrison, M. B., Rutt, B. K., Deutsch, G. K., Chin, F. T., Davidzon, G. A., Hall, J. N., Sha, S. J., Fredericks, C. A., Andreasson, K. I., Kerchner, G. A., Wagner, A. D., Mormino, E. C. (2021). Association of CSF biomarkers with hippocampal-dependent memory in preclinical Alzheimer disease. Neurology, 96(10), e1470-e1481. doi: https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000011477 PDF
• Trelle, A. N., Carr, V. A., Guerin, S. A., Thieu, M. K., Jayakumar, M., Guo, W., Nadiadwala, A., Corso, N. K., Hunt, M. P., Litovsky, C. P., Tanner, N. J., Deutsch, G. K., Bernstein, J. D., Harrison, M. B., Khazenzon, A. M., Jiang, J., Sha, S. J., Fredericks, C. A., Rutt, B. K., Mormino, E. C., Kerchner, G. A., Wagner, A. D. (2020). Hippocampal and cortical mechanisms at retrieval explain variability in episodic remembering in older adults. elife, 9, e55335. doi: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55335 PDF
• Mormino, E. C., Toueg, T. N., Azevedo, C., Castillo, J. B., Guo, W., Nadiadwala, A., Corso, N. K., Hall, J. N., Fan, A., Trelle, A. N., Harrison, M. B., Hunt, M. P., Sha, S. J., Deutsch, G., James, M., Fredericks, C. A., Koran, M. E., Zeineh, M., Poston, K., Greicius, M. D., Khalighi, M., Davidzon, G. A., Shen, B., Zaharchuk, G., Wagner, A. D., Chin, F. T. (2021). Tau PET imaging with 18 F-PI-2620 in aging and neurodegenerative diseases. European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, 48, 2233-2244. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-020-04923-7 PDF
• Gate, D., Saligrama, N., Leventhal, O., Yang, A. C., Unger, M. S., Middeldorp, J., Chen, K., Lehallier, B., Channappa, D., De Los Santos, M. B., McBride, A., Pluvinage, J., Elahi, F., Tam, G. K. Y., Kim, Y., Greicius, M., Wagner, A. D., Aigner, L., Galasko, D. R., Davis, M. M., Wyss-Coray, T. (2020). Clonally expanded CD8 T cells patrol the cerebrospinal fluid in Alzheimer’s disease. Nature, 577(7790), 399-404. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1895-7 PDF

Posters

• Sheng, J., Trelle, A. N., Romero, A., Park, J., Tran, T. T., Wilson, E., Andreasson, K., Sha, S., Mormino, E.C., Wagner, A. D. (2025, February). Top-down attention and Alzheimer's pathology impact cortical selectivity during learning, influencing episodic memory in aging. Poster presented at the Knight Initiative Symposium 2025 in Stanford, CA. Poster here 
• Trelle, A. N., Cody, K. A., Nguyen, T. T., Winer, J. R., Weiss, S., Romero, A., Sai, I., Wilson, E. N., Wagner, A. D., Maecker, H. T., Mormino, E. C. (2025, January). Effects of amyloid and tau status on multiplex plasma CNS and inflammatory proteins in a normal aging cohort. Poster presented at the Human Amyloid Imaging 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Poster here
• Sheng, J., Trelle, A. N., Young, C. B., Romero, A., Park, J., Sai, I., Vossler, H., Wagner, A. D., Mormino, E.C. (2025, January). Associations between age-related tau deposition and neural selectivity in cognitively unimpaired older adults. Poster presented at the Human Amyloid Imaging 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Poster here
• Trelle, A. N., Sheng, J., Wilson, E. N., Romero, A., Kasireddy, N., Deutsch, G. K., Sha, S. J., Carr, V. A., Kerchner, G. A., Andreasson, K. I., Greicius, M. D., Mormino, E. C., Wagner, A. D. (2023, July) Associations of APOE ε4 and Alzheimer's disease CSF biomarkers with cortical reinstatement and episodic memory in cognitively unimpaired older adults. Poster presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Poster here
• Trelle, A. N., Tran, T. T., Wilson, E. N., Deutsch, G. K., Sha, S. J., Andreasson, K. I., Carr, V. A., Kerchner, G. A., Wagner, A. D., Mormino, E. C. (2022, July). Multimodal biomarkers improve prediction of memory function in clinically unimpaired older adults. Poster presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in San Diego, CA, USA. Poster here
• Trelle, A. N., Toueg, T. N., Castillo, J. B., Channappa, D., Corso, N., Hunt, M., Nadiadwala, A., Jayakumar, M., Guo, W., Harrison, M. B., Azevedo, C., Shen, B., Davidzon, G. A., Deutsch, G., Hall, J. N., Sha, S. K., Fredericks, C., Kerchner, G., Carr, V. A., Chin, F. T., Wagner, A. D., Mormino, E. C. (2020, January). Hippocampal Tau Accumulation Predicts Individual Differences in Episodic Memory in Cognitively Normal Older Adults. Poster presented at the Human Amyloid Imaging 2020 in Miami, FL, USA. Poster here