Stephanie Buss

• Doctor of Medicine
• Researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated with cerebral slowing on electroencephalography (EEG), or a shift in oscillatory power from higher to lower frequencies. This change can be captured as the spectral power ratio (SPR) of alpha and beta over delta and theta: (α+β)/(δ+θ). Prior studies have shown that compared to cognitively unimpaired...

Background Cortical excitability is elevated in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Transcranial magnetic stimulation‐evoked responses on electromyography (EMG) and electroencephalography (EEG) have captured this increased excitability in motor brain regions. However, it is not yet known if increased excitability is also present in the parietal lobe or the e...

Background & Objective Alzheimer Disease (AD) patients at multiple stages of disease progression have a high prevalence of seizures. However, whether AD and epilepsy share pathophysiological changes remains poorly defined. In this study, we leveraged high-throughput transcriptomic data from sporadic AD cases at different stages of cognitive impairm...

Neural hyper-excitability and network dysfunction are neurophysiological hallmarks of Alzheimer disease (AD) in animal studies, but their presence and clinical relevance in humans remain poorly understood. We introduce a novel perturbation-based approach combining transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG), alongside res...

Objectives : Unstructured and structured data in electronic health records (EHR) are a rich source of information for research and quality improvement studies. However, extracting accurate information from EHR is labor-intensive. Here we introduce an automated EHR phenotyping model to identify patients with Alzheimer's Disease, related dementias (A...

BACKGROUND Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a common cause of hospital admissions. Medical records contain valuable information about CHF, but manual chart review is time-consuming. Claims databases (using International Classification of Diseases [ ICD ] codes) provide a scalable alternative but are less accurate. Automated analysis of medical rec...

This JAMA Internal Medicine Patient Page describes memory loss and dementia and how they may be treated.

Background Network hyperexcitability has emerged as an important contributor to cognitive dysfunction and clinical progression in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with work in animal AD models supporting a mechanistic, feed‐forward link between neuronal hyperexcitability and amyloid and tau pathology. Seizures are a quintessential manifestation of network...

Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated with increased cortical excitability, including an elevated risk of seizures. Transcranial magnetic stimulation with electromyography (TMS‐EMG‐EEG) can be used to index intracortical excitability. Prior work has shown that TMS‐based excitability measures are altered in AD and are related to disease...

Background Markers sensitive to brain changes at the transition from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are needed for aiding prognosis and the selection of potential responders to novel interventional therapies. EEG markers may be advantageous due to their accessibility. Prior research suggests that AD is a...

Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has a relatively well‐characterized pathology of amyloid‐β and tau accumulation. Yet, disease progression from preclinical to clinical stage remains largely unpredictable at the individual level. Growing evidence shows disrupted synaptic signaling in functionally connected brain networks early in the preclinical...

Objective To investigate the relationship between cortico-motor excitability and cognitive reserve (CR) in cognitively unimpaired older adults (CU) and in older adults with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Methods Data were collected and analyzed from 15 CU and 24 amyloid-positive AD participants aged 50–...

Electroencephalography (EEG) has shown potential for identifying early-stage biomarkers of neurocognitive dysfunction associated with dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD). A large body of evidence shows that, compared to healthy controls (HC), AD is associated with power increases in lower EEG frequencies (delta and theta) and decreases in high...

Adopting preventive strategies in individuals with subclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD) has the potential to delay dementia onset and reduce healthcare costs. Thus, it is extremely important to identify inexpensive, scalable, sensitive, and specific markers to track disease progression. The electroencephalography spectral power ratio (SPR: the fast...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated with neurophysiologic changes, including cortical hyperexcitability and reduced long‐term potentiation (LTP)‐like plasticity, that can be investigated using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). AD is preceded by a preclinical phase of beta‐amyloid accumulation without clinical or cognitive symptoms. Our go...

Background Maintaining independence in older age is an important aspect of quality of life. We investigated depressive symptoms as an important modifiable risk factor that may mediate the effects of physical and cognitive decline on disability. Methods We prospectively analyzed data from 223 adults (age 50–85; 117 controls and 106 with type-2 diab...

Background This study aimed at assessing the long-term effects of intranasal insulin (INI) on cognition and gait in older people with and without type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods Phase 2 randomized, double-blinded trial consisted of 24 week treatment with 40 IU of INI (Novolin® R, off-label use) or placebo (sterile saline) once daily and 2...

Background Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) have abnormally high cortical excitability, with an increased risk of seizures and epileptiform discharges. Transcranial magnetic stimulation with electroencephalography (TMS‐EEG) can noninvasively measure cortical excitability in local brain regions, and has shown increased excitability in motor co...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) increases the risk of dementia. Intranasal insulin (INI) has emerged as treatment for T2DM-related cognitive impairment. This randomized, doubled blind trial consisted of 24-week treatment with 40 IU of intranasal insulin (Novolin® R) or placebo (sterile saline) once daily and 24-week follow-up period. T2DM and contr...

Prior studies have reported increased cortical excitability in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), but findings have been inconsistent, and how excitability relates to dementia severity remains incompletely understood. We tested the association between transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) measure of motor cortical excitability and cognition in...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) reveals decreased efficacy of long-term potentiation-like (LTP-like) neuroplastic mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, it is not yet known whether LTP-like plasticity is also impaired in prodromal AD, or how abnormal TMS measures are related to established AD biomarkers. Here, we investigated the...

Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated with increased cortical excitability, including a risk of seizures and epileptiform discharges. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be used to index cortical excitability non‐invasively, and previous studies have revealed increased TMS excitability measures in AD. However, it is not yet know...

Background: With the increasing number of people surviving into older age in Africa, dementia is becoming a public health concern. Understanding the social dynamics of dementia in resource-limited settings is critical for developing effective interventions. We explored community perceptions about people with dementia in southwestern Uganda. Metho...

Background With the increasing number of people surviving into older age in Africa, dementia is becoming a public health concern. Understanding the social dynamics of dementia in resource-limited settings is critical for developing effective interventions. We explored community perceptions about people with dementia in southwestern Uganda. Methods...

Background With the increasing number of people surviving into older age in Africa, dementia is becoming a public health concern. Understanding the social dynamics of dementia in resource-limited settings is critical for developing effective interventions. We explored community perceptions about people with dementia in southwestern Uganda. Methods...

Background: An estimated 50 million people worldwide have Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), and this number is projected to increase with the growth of the aging population, with the largest growth occurring in low and middle-income countries. Diagnostic coverage for dementia is estimated to be only 5-10% in low- and middle-income...

Background: An estimated 50 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), and this number is projected to increase with the growth of the aging population, with the largest growth occurring in low and middle income countrie . Diagnostic coverage for dementia is estimated to be only 5-10% in low- and middle-income c...

Background: An estimated 50 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), and this number is projected to increase with the growth of the aging population, with the largest growth occurring in low and middle-income countries. Diagnostic coverage for dementia is estimated to be only 5-10% in low- and middle-income c...

Background An estimated 50 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), and this number is projected to increase with the growth of the aging population, with the largest growth occurring in low and middle-income countries. Diagnostic coverage for dementia is estimated to be only 5-10% in low- and middle-income co...

Background With the increasing number of people surviving into older age in Africa, dementia is becoming a public health problem. Understanding the social dynamics of dementia in resource-limited settings is critical for developing effective interventions. We explored community perceptions about people with dementia in southwestern Uganda. Methods...

Background: With the increasing number of people surviving into older age in Africa, dementia is becoming a public health concern. Understanding the social dynamics of dementia in resource-limited settings is critical for developing effective interventions. We explored community perceptions about people with dementia in southwestern Uganda. Methods...

Purpose of review: Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease without effective pharmacological treatment. Noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), are increasingly being investigated for their potential to ameliora...

Studies of developmental prosopagnosia have often shown that developmental prosopagnosia differentially affects human face processing over non-face object processing. However, little consideration has been given to whether this condition is associated with perceptual or sensorimotor impairments in other modalities. Comorbidities have played a role...

"Cardiovascular disease (CVD) affects daily living functionality, cognitive ability, and mood. We evaluated the effects of a CVD risk score on disability and assessed the characteristics that may modify this relationship in 192 older adults (mean age: 65.6 years, 96 women). WHODAS 2.0 was used to measure global disability and mobility difficulty. F...

Studies have shown subtle gray and white matter abnormalities in subjects with several developmental disorders including prosopagnosia, tone-deafness, and dyslexia. Correlational evidence suggests that tone-deafness and dyslexia tend to co-occur, suggesting a link between these two developmental disorders. However, it is not known whether tone-deaf...

Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are common causes of cognitive decline among older adults and share strong epidemiological links. Distinct patterns of cortical atrophy are observed in AD and T2DM, but robust comparisons between structure-function relationships across these two disease states are lacking. Objective To...

While visual plasticity is strongest in early infancy, new studies show that plasticity is maintained well into adult life.This possibility is compellingly demonstrated by one patient, SK, who gained vision for the first time in adult life andsignificantly improved his ability to see the world around him. The persistence of visual plasticity in adu...

MURC UBC 2015