Neurobiology of Psychosis in Alzheimer's Disease

Project Summary

The goal of this research is to find an explanation for delusions and hallucinations, symptoms which commonly occur in AD and LBD. We are testing the hypothesis that patients who develop these symptoms may have abnormal monitoring of their beliefs and perceptions.  Patients who do not monitor their beliefs appropriately may develop delusions, while patients who do not monitor their perceptions appropriately may be more likely to develop hallucinations.  We plan to test patients with delusions and hallucinations using tasks designed to measure self-monitoring of beliefs and perceptions.  We also plan to get brain scans on patients to determine if abnormalities in specific brain regions occur in patients with hallucinations and delusions, compared to patients without these symptoms.  We think that the monitoring problems, and brain imaging differences, might be different between patients with hallucinations and those with delusions.  This work will hopefully help us to understand why these symptoms occur.  It might also lead to new treatments, which will prove especially helpful if it turns out we need to be treating hallucinations and delusions differently from one another.