Susan M Landau, PhD

Research Neuroscientist

Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
University of California, Berkeley

Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging
Functional Imaging Department, Life Sciences Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

slandau at berkeley dot edu

Research

Dr Landau's research focuses on brain changes that occur in healthy aging and Alzheimer’s disease. She uses a variety of neuroimaging techniques, other biomarkers, and health information to understand the neurophysiological processes underlying cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Her research has a particular emphasis on the roles of amyloid and tau, measured with positron emission tomography (PET), and neurodegeneration, measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

She is the principal investigator of POINTER Imaging study, an ancillary study to the U.S. Study to Protect Brain Health Through Lifestyle Intervention to Reduce Risk (U.S. POINTER) trial. This 2-year clinical trial is examining the influence of multidomain lifestyle interventions on brain changes in at-risk older individuals across the U.S. She also oversees PET pipeline development and analysis in multisite longitudinal studies including the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), the ADNI Vietnam War Veterans study, the ADNI Late Life Depression study, and the Standardized Centralized Alzheimer’s & Related Dementia Neuroimaging (SCAN) study. She has led curation and quantification of over 8000 PET images acquired with a variety of PET tracers and has made this data available to the scientific community for research, education, and clinical trial development. Dr. Landau received the Human Amyoid Imaging Christopher Clark Award in 2018.

Education and Training
Wesleyan University (BA Psychology, 1999)
Psychology and Neuroscience Departments at the University of California, Berkeley (PhD, 2004)
Postdoctoral fellowship, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berekley

Selected publications (Google Scholar for full list)

Harrison TM, Ward TJ, Murphy A, Baker SL, Dominguez PA, Koeppe R, Vemuri P, Lockhart SN, Jung Y, Harvey DJ, Lovato L, Toga AW, Masdeu J, Oh H, Gitelman DR, Aggarwal N, Snyder HM, Baker LD, DeCarli C, Jagust WJ, Landau SM, Group USPS. Optimizing quantification of MK6240 tau PET in unimpaired older adults. Neuroimage. 2023;265:119761. Epub 20221128. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119761. PubMed PMID: 36455762.

Landau SM, Ward TJ, Murphy A, Iaccarino L, Harrison TM, La Joie R, Baker S, Koeppe RA, Jagust WJ, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging I. Quantification of amyloid beta and tau PET without a structural MRI. Alzheimers Dement. 2022. Epub 20220416. doi: 10.1002/alz.12668. PubMed PMID: 35429219.

Jagust WJ, Landau SM, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging I. Temporal Dynamics of beta-Amyloid Accumulation in Aging and Alzheimer Disease. Neurology. 2021;96(9):e1347-e57. Epub 20210106. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000011524. PubMed PMID: 33408147; PMCID: PMC8055327.

Young CB, Landau SM, Harrison TM, Poston KL, Mormino EC, Adni. Influence of common reference regions on regional tau patterns in cross-sectional and longitudinal [(18)F]-AV-1451 PET data. Neuroimage. 2021;243:118553. Epub 20210903. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118553. PubMed PMID: 34487825; PMCID: PMC8785682.

Landau SM, Harrison TM. A Link Between Cardiovascular Risk Management and Alzheimer Disease Is Still Elusive. JAMA Neurol. 2021;78(5):524-6. doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2021.0083. PubMed PMID: 33683302.

Guo T, Landau SM, Jagust WJ, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging I. Age, vascular disease, and Alzheimer's disease pathologies in amyloid negative elderly adults. Alzheimers Res Ther. 2021;13(1):174. Epub 20211015. doi: 10.1186/s13195-021-00913-5. PubMed PMID: 34654465; PMCID: PMC8520216.

Royse SK, Minhas DS, Lopresti BJ, Murphy A, Ward T, Koeppe RA, Bullich S, DeSanti S, Jagust WJ, Landau SM, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging I. Validation of amyloid PET positivity thresholds in centiloids: a multisite PET study approach. Alzheimers Res Ther. 2021;13(1):99. Epub 20210510. doi: 10.1186/s13195-021-00836-1. PubMed PMID: 33971965; PMCID: PMC8111744.

Sonni I, Lesman Segev OH, Baker SL, Iaccarino L, Korman D, Rabinovici GD, Jagust WJ, Landau SM, La Joie R, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging I. Evaluation of a visual interpretation method for tau-PET with (18)F-flortaucipir. Alzheimers Dement (Amst). 2020;12(1):e12133. Epub 20201128. doi: 10.1002/dad2.12133. PubMed PMID: 33313377; PMCID: PMC7699207.

Guo T, Korman D, La Joie R, Shaw LM, Trojanowski JQ, Jagust WJ, Landau SM, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging I. Normalization of CSF pTau measurement by Abeta(40) improves its performance as a biomarker of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimers Res Ther. 2020;12(1):97. Epub 20200815. doi: 10.1186/s13195-020-00665-8. PubMed PMID: 32799929; PMCID: PMC7429887.

Giorgio J, Landau SM, Jagust WJ, Tino P, Kourtzi Z, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging I. Modelling prognostic trajectories of cognitive decline due to Alzheimer's disease. Neuroimage Clin. 2020;26:102199. Epub 20200126. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102199. PubMed PMID: 32106025; PMCID: PMC7044529.

Guo T, Shaw LM, Trojanowski JQ, Jagust WJ, Landau SM, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging I. Association of CSF Abeta, amyloid PET, and cognition in cognitively unimpaired elderly adults. Neurology. 2020;95(15):e2075-e85. Epub 20200805. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000010596. PubMed PMID: 32759202; PMCID: PMC7713747.