Jeffrey Motter, PhD

Project Title: “Olfactory Functioning Across Dementia Diagnoses”

Accurate identification and diagnosis of different types of dementia is crucial to ensure that patients receive the best treatments and accurate prognosis. However, there is substantial overlap in symptoms between Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia (FTD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and vascular dementia, which makes diagnosis of each of these diseases challenging. 

Dr. Motter’s research will respond to this urgent need for simple, inexpensive, non-invasive, and easily available diagnostic tests for early detection of neurodegenerative diseases by exploring differences in odor memory across different types of dementia. This research may lead to the development of a simple diagnostic test for dementias.

Dr. Motter is a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University.

This research is funded by the Alzheimer’s Association and American Brain Foundation, in collaboration with the American Academy of Neurology.