Theresa Köbe

• Neurobiologist, PhD
• Scientific Officer at DLR Project Management Agency

Background Lifestyle‐based motor, sensory and cognitive enrichment can target several health risk factors in the older populations by improving psychosocial, cognitive and physical (dys)function 1,2 . Based on these findings, we developed a novel intervention called REMIND (An Envi r onmental E nrich m ent I ntervention to Preve n t D ementia) for...

Background: Lifestyle-based multimodal interventions that integrate physical, sensory, cognitive and social enrichment are suggested to promote healthy mental aging and resilience against aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Objectives: This meta-analysis examined the efficacy of dance movement interventions (DMI) as an integrated mind-body activ...

Introduction: The hippocampus is the most prominent single region of interest (ROI) for the diagnosis and prediction of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, its suitability in the earliest stages of cognitive decline, i.e., subjective cognitive decline (SCD), remains uncertain which warrants the pursuit of alternative or complementary regions. The a...

Myo‐inositol (MI) is a presumed marker for glial activation which can be quantified by non‐invasive Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) and is suspected to be elevated in early Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the framework of the NeuroMET2 project, we investigated the relationship between MI and other AD‐relevant measures. Absolute concentrations of...

Multimodal lifestyle-based interventions that integrate physical, mental and social stimulation could promote mental health and brain resilience against dementia. This meta-analysis examined the efficacy of dance movement interventions (DMI) on psychological health in older adults. Pre-registration was done with PROSPERO (CRD42021265112). PubMed, W...

Regular musical activity as a complex multimodal lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. This cross-sectional study investigated the association and interplay between musical instrument playing during life, multi-domain cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults (O...

Importance: Preventive trials of anti-amyloid agents might preferably recruit persons showing earliest biologically relevant β-amyloid (Aβ) binding on positron emission tomography (PET). Objective: To investigate the timing at which Aβ-PET binding starts showing associations with other markers of Alzheimer disease. Design, setting, and particip...

Importance: Developing interventions against age-related memory decline and for older adults experiencing neurodegenerative disease is one of the greatest challenges of our generation. Spermidine supplementation has shown beneficial effects on brain and cognitive health in animal models, and there has been preliminary evidence of memory improvemen...

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD), as expressed by older adults, is associated with negative affect, which, in turn, is a likely risk factor for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). This study assessed the associations between negative affective burden, cognitive functioning, and functional connectivity in networks vulnerable to AD in the context of SCD. Old...

Background: Poor vascular health may impede brain functioning in older adults, thus possibly increasing the risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease (AD). The emerging link between vascular risk factors (VRF) and longitudinal decline in resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) within functional brain networks needs replication and fur...

Objective: To evaluate novel plasma p-tau231, p-tau181 as well as Aβ40 and Aβ42 assays as indicators of tau and Aβ pathologies measured with positron emission tomography (PET), and their association with cognitive change, in cognitively unimpaired older adults. Methods: In a cohort of 244 older adults at risk of AD owing to a family history of A...

Background Regular music practice is suggested to be protective against age‐related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) ¹ . This study investigated associations between music making during the entire life, late‐life cognitive performance and gray matter (GM) structure in the DZNE‐Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study (DELC...

Midlife hypercholesterolemia is a well-known risk factor for sporadic Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and like AD, it is highly influenced by genetics with heritability estimates of 32–63%. We thus hypothesized that genetics underlying peripheral blood total cholesterol (TC) levels could influence the risk of developing AD. We created a weighted polygeni...

1 A bstract Regular musical activity as a highly-stimulating lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This study investigated associations between lifelong regular musical instrument playing, late-life cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults. We show that m...

Objective: To investigate the biological and clinical correlates of Aβ spatial extent deposition levels in cognitively unimpaired older adults. Methods: We included cognitively unimpaired older adults from three cohorts, totalling 529 participants (PREVENT-AD, n=129; ADNI, n=400 and HABS, n=288) who underwent Aβ positron emission tomography (PET)....

Resting-state functional connectivity is suggested to be cross-sectionally associated with both vascular burden and Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. However, evidence is lacking regarding longitudinal changes in functional connectivity. This study includes 247 cognitively unimpaired individuals with a family history of sporadic AD (185 women/ 62...

Background White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are frequently found in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Commonly considered as a marker of cerebrovascular disease, regional WMH may be related to pathological hallmarks of AD, including beta-amyloid (Aβ) plaques and neurodegeneration. The aim of this study was to examine the regional distribution of WMH ass...

Background Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) may represent the earliest clinical manifestation of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (Jessen et al. 2014). In individuals with SCD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), changes in white matter (WM) microstructure have been shown using diffusion weighted (DW) imaging (Brueggen et al. 2019). However, it is unknow...

Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a multifactorial disease, characterized not only by pathological protein aggregation (Ab and tau), but also by early vascular dysfunctions and functional connectivity alterations (Iturria‐Medina 2016; van der Kant 2019). The study objective was to investigate the association between different markers of vascul...

Introduction Cross-sectional studies suggest that cardiovascular risk factors and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) biomarkers are associated with abnormal brain resting-state functional connectivity in aging and AD; however, evidence is missing regarding longitudinal changes in functional connectivity. In this study, we investigate whether cholesterol leve...

Importance Vascular risk factors are associated with increased risk of Alzheimer disease (AD), but it is unclear whether there is a direct association of these risk factors with AD pathogenesis. Objectives To assess the associations of vascular risk factors with AD pathogenesis in asymptomatic individuals, and to test whether this association is m...

Background Given the global increase in the aging population and age-related diseases, the promotion of healthy aging is one of the most crucial public health issues. This trial aims to contribute to the establishment of effective approaches to promote cognitive and brain health in older individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD). Presence...

Background Cerebrovascular pathology, quantified by white matter lesions (WML), is known to affect cognition in aging, and is associated with an increased risk of dementia. The present study aimed to investigate whether higher functional connectivity in cognitive control networks mitigates the detrimental effect of WML on cognition. Methods Nondem...

Introduction: Nutritional intervention with the natural polyamine spermidine, an autophagy-enhancing agent, can prevent memory loss in aging model organisms. This is the first human study to evaluate the impact of spermidine supplementation on memory performance in older adults at risk for the development of Alzheimer's disease. Methods: Cogniti...

Background Supplementation of spermidine, an autophagy-inducing agent, has been shown to protect against neurodegeneration and memory impairment in aged animal models. We report a translational study aiming to determine safety and tolerability of a wheat germ extract containing enhanced spermidine concentrations in murine model and a human cohort o...

Background One of the most common neurodegenerative diseases is Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Maintaining a healthy life style can reduce the risk of AD due to cognitive and brain reserve, but the influence of reserve is often difficult to measure. In this ongoing study, we use 7 T high resolution MRI data from the EMPIR project NeuroMet to explore cog...

Alteration of cerebral perfusion can be considered as a possible therapeutic target in mild cognitive impairment. This randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind proof-of-concept study assessed effects of omega-3 fatty acids on cerebral perfusion in patients with mild cognitive impairment. In thirteen patients (omega:n=5; placebo:n=8) cerebral pe...

In this cross-sectional study, body composition of fifty-eight mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients (single and multiple domain) and fifty healthy older control subjects by the use of bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) was assessed. Measurements were: height, weight, body mass index, BIA: phase angle (PA), total body water (TBW), lean body...

Dementia due to Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease for which treatment strategies at an early stage are of great clinical importance. So far, there is still a lack of non-invasive diagnostic tools to sensitively detect AD in early stages and to predict individual disease progression. Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) of the...

AKTIVA-MCI is a program for patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) that aims to enhance participation in cognitively stimulating leisure activities. Participation in cognitively stimulating activities seems to be a potential strategy for people with MCI delaying cognitive decline for a while. In total, 35 MCI patients were enrolled in the pi...

Cardiovascular fitness is thought to exert beneficial effects on brain function and might delay the onset of cognitive decline. Empirical evidence of exercise-induced cognitive enhancement, however, has not been conclusive, possibly due to short intervention times in clinical trials. Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) has been proposed as...

In healthy older adults, resveratrol supplementation has been shown to improve long-term glucose control, resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of the hippocampus, and memory function. Here, we aimed to investigate if these beneficial effects extend to individuals at high-risk for dementia, i.e., patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI)...

Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia, is marked by progressive neurodegenerative changes of brain tissue, which affect the hippocampus early in the course of the disease (1). Whole brain MR elastography (MRE) has been demonstrated to detect decreased overall brain stiffness in AD compared to healthy controls (HC) (...

Metabolic changes have been suggested to contribute to dementia and its precursor mild cognitive impairment (MCI), yet previous results particularly for the “satiety hormone” leptin are mixed. Therefore, we aimed to determine if MCI patients show systematic differences in leptin, independent of sex, adipose mass, age, and glucose and lipid metaboli...

Background Long-chain (> 20 C-atoms) polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC PUFAs) of both the omega-6 (n-6) and omega-3 (n-3) series are important for the functional integrity of brain and thereby cognition, memory and mood. Clinical studies observed associations between altered LC PUFA levels and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers disease and...

[Differences in Attitudes of Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment towards Early Diagnosis at a University Clinic and a Specialist Physician’s Office] [Article in German] AIM: To examine the attitude of patients with mild cognitive impairment to diagnostics under different healthcare settings. METHODOLOGY: A comparative survey was carried out of...

Previous studies in older adults suggested beneficial effects of omega-3 fatty acid (FA) supplementation, aerobic exercise, or cognitive stimulation on brain structure and function. However, combined effects of these interventions in patients suffering from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are unknown. Using a randomized interventional design, we ev...

The single nucleotide polymorphism rs17070145 within the KIBRA gene (kidney and brain expressed protein) has been associated with variations in memory functions and related brain areas. However, previous studies yielded conflicting results, which might bedue to divergent sample characteristics or task-specific effects. Therefore, we aimed to determ...

1. Background The number of patients with dementia is rising exponentially. So far, no disease-modifying treatments are available (Thies & Bleiler 2013). Therefore, early detection of potentially modifiable risk factors is not only an issue of medical but also social and economic interest (Barnes 2011). The hormone leptin , well-known for its invol...

1. Introduction Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of certain genes become more and more relevant as potential modulators of cognitive function. It has been shown that young homozygous C-allele carriers of the KIBRA-SNP rs17070145 exhibit a lower memory performance and hippocampal (HC) activity as well as a smaller volume of HC subfields than T-...