Alberto Serrano-Pozo
John H. Growdon MD Clinical Fellow in Dementia, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Instructor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Massachusetts General Hospital
(617) 643-0870
I am a clinician-scientist neurologist with interest in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative dementias. My research focuses on trying to explain how the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles accumulate in the brain of Alzheimer’s disease patients and how they lead to dementia. I first approached this question by studying postmortem brain specimens from Alzheimer’s disease patients and healthy individuals under the microscope. The findings of my unbiased quantitative analyses supported an important role of glial (non-neuronal) cells, specifically astrocytes and microglial cells. These cells clearly react to plaques and tangles, but the consequences of this response remain largely unknown. Therefore, I became interested in understanding the underlying mechanisms of glial responses and their effects on Alzheimer’s disease development and progression.
http://www.massgeneral.org/neurology/research/researchlab.aspx
Dr. Serrano-Pozo is originally from Málaga, Spain. He received his MD in 2001 at the University of Málaga School of Medicine and completed his neurology residency in 2006 at the University Hospital Virgen del Rocío in Seville (Spain), followed by a 2-year research and behavioral neurology fellowship at the same institution. He first joined Dr. Bradley Hyman’s lab at MGH as a research fellow in 2008, where he investigated clinic-pathological correlations of Alzheimer’s dementia using brain specimens from the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center brain bank, as well as the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) database. His publications during this period resulted in Dr. Serrano-Pozo obtaining his PhD at the University of Seville in 2013. Next, he pursued a US neurology residency, which he completed at the University of Iowa in 2017 as Chief Resident, before returning to MGH.
Serrano-Pozo A, Aldridge GM, Zhang Q. Four decades of research in Alzheimer’s disease (1975-2914): a bibliometric and scientometric analysis. J Alzheimers Dis 2017 Jun 27. doi: 10.3233/JAD-170184. [Epub ahead of print].
Serrano-Pozo A, Sanchez-Garcia MA, Heras-Garvin A, March-Diaz R, Navarro V, Vizuete M, López-Barneo J, Vitorica J, Pascual A. Acute and chronic sustained hypoxia do not substantially regulate amyloid peptide generation in vivo. PLoS One 2017; 12(1): e0170345. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170345. [PMCID: PMC5242476].
Serrano-Pozo A, Qian J, Muzikansky A, Monsell SE, Montine TJ, Frosch MP, Betensky RA, Hyman BT. Thal amyloid stages do not significantly impact the correlation between neuropathological change and cognition in the Alzheimer disease continuum. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol 2016; 75(6): 516-26 [PMCID in process].
Serrano-Pozo A, Betensky RA, Frosch MP, Hyman BT. Plaque-associated local toxicity increases over the clinical course of Alzheimer disease. Am J Pathol 2016; 186(2): 375-384. [PMCID: PMC4729270]
Serrano-Pozo A, Hyman BT. Alzheimer dementia with “insufficient” amyloid: variant or mimic of Alzheimer’s disease? Nat Rev Neurol 2015: 11(12): 674-5.
Serrano-Pozo A, Qian J, Monsell SE, Betensky RA, Hyman BT. APOE2 is associated with milder clinical and pathological Alzheimer’s disease. Ann Neurol 2015; 77(6): 917-929 [PMCID: PMC4447539].
Serrano-Pozo A, Qian J, Monsell SE, Blacker D, Gómez-Isla T, Betensky RA, Growdon JH, Johnson K, Frosch MP, Sperling RA, Hyman BT. Mild to moderate Alzheimer dementia with insufficient neuropathological changes. Ann Neurol 2014; 75(4): 597-601. [PMCID: PMC4016558].
Suárez-González A, Serrano-Pozo A*, Arroyo-Anlló EM, Franco-Macías E, Polo J, García-Solís D, Gil-Néciga E. Utility of neuropsychiatric tools in the differential diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer´s disease: quantitative and qualitative findings. Int Psychogeriatr 2014; 26(3): 453-461.
Serrano-Pozo A, Qian J, Monsell SE, Frosch MP, Betensky RA, Hyman BT. Examination of the clinicopathologic continuum of Alzheimer disease in the autopsy cohort of the National Alzheimer Coordinating Center. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol 2013; 72(12): 1182-1192. [PMCID: PMC3962953].
Serrano-Pozo A, Muzikansky A, Gómez-Isla T, Growdon JH, Betensky RA, Frosch MP, Hyman BT. Differential relationships of reactive astrocytes and microglia to fibrillar amyloid deposits in Alzheimer disease. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol 2013; 72(6): 462-471. [PMCID: PMC3661683].
Serrano-Pozo A, Gómez-Isla T, Growdon JH, Frosch MP, Hyman BT. A phenotypic change but not proliferation underlies glial responses in Alzheimer disease. Am J Pathol 2013; 182(6): 2332-2344. [PMCID: PMC3668030].
Serrano-Pozo A, Mielke ML, Muzikansky A, Gómez-Isla T, Growdon JH, Bacskai BJ, Betensky RA, Frosch MP, Hyman BT. Stable size distribution of amyloid plaques over the course of Alzheimer disease. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol 2012; 71(8): 694-701. [PMCID: PMC3407299].
Serrano-Pozo A, Frosch MP, Masliah E, Hyman BT. Neuropathological alterations in Alzheimer disease. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med 2011; 1(1): a006189. [PMCID: PMC3234452].
Serrano-Pozo A, Mielke ML, Gómez-Isla T, Betensky RA, Growdon JH, Frosch MP, Hyman BT. Reactive glia not only associates with plaques but also parallels tangles in Alzheimer’s disease. Am J Pathol 2011; 179(3): 1373-1384. [PMCID: PMC3157187].
Serrano-Pozo A, William CM, Ferrer I, Uro-Coste E, Delisle MB, Maurage CA, Hock C, Nitsch RM, Masliah E, Growdon JH, Frosch MP, Hyman BT. Beneficial effect of human anti-amyloid-beta active immunization on neurite morphology and tau pathology. Brain 2010; 133(Pt5): 1312-1327. [PMCID: PMC2859150].
Serrano-Pozo A, Vega GL, Lütjohann D, Locascio JJ, Tennis MK, Deng A, Atri A, Hyman BT, Irizarry MC, Growdon JH. Effect of simvastatin on cholesterol metabolism and Alzheimer disease biomarkers. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord 2010; 71(8): 694-701. [PMCID: PMC3694274].
More publications and an updated list of them can be found at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Serrano-Pozo+A
