Recent news

December 2, 2020

​Heidi will give an overview of the Lab's recent work at the Feindel Brain and Mind Seminar at The Neuro, McGill (virtually). The title of her talk is: "Focus on the locus: from methods to biomarkers to interventions"

October  23, 2020

We examined the various sources of contrast contributing to the hyper intense signal in the locus coeruleus and substantial nigra using phantom and human imaging. The work, spearheaded by Nikos and Dimo, is now published in Brain Structure and Function! Congrats!!

September 1, 2020
​Nina Engels Dominiguez and Elise Beckers have joined the group as PhD-students. Nina starts in September and will focus on various brainstem properties in the preclinical phase of Alzheimer's disease. Her work is a collaboration between Maastricht University and MGH (Dr. Yakeel Quiroz). Elise will start in October and will examine two different methods to modulate the locus coeruleus in collaboration with Dr. Gilles Vandewalle at University of Liege (Belgium). Welcome!

June 24, 2020

We examined the contribution of the locus coeruleus to memory function in young adults using 7T fMRI, saliva measurements and physiological recording. Our work is now accepted and online at eLife! Congrats to the entire team for this amazing effort.

March 16, 2020

​All members of the Jacobs lab are currently working from home to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. All study visits are cancelled till further notice, though you can reach us via phone or email. We continue to work on improving our understanding of and detecting Alzheimer's disease as early as possible. As soon as we can safely resume our research activities, we will reach reach out to our participants. Stay safe everyone!

February 24 - 28, 2020

Two of our favourite collaborators of Maastricht University, Benedikt Poser and Dimo Ivanov,  are in Boston helping us to implement and test locus coeruleus imaging at the new 7T Terra scanner. Grateful to be able to work with these two amazing experts!

February 1, 2020

​The lab was awarded a major grant by Alzheimer Nederland to continue our work in understanding individual variability in locus coeruleus integrity. 

January - February

Two new postdoctoral researchers have started in the lab. Since January, Maxime van Egroo started working on locus coeruleus integrity and sleep in Maastricht. Since February, Prokopis Prokopiou started working on locus coeurleus connectivity and tau accumulation in Boston. We are all excited to work with them!

January 16, 2020

​Heidi will talk about the first findings of her work of the NIH-NIA grant (Tracking the origin of tau pathology) at the Human Amyloid Imaging Conference. She will show the relationship between locus coeruleus integrity, amyloid and tau pathology and cognitive decline.

January 8-9, 2020

Joost and Nikos defended successfully their PhD-thesis! Congratulations to the new PhD'ers! 

December 12-15, 2019

​ Heidi, Whitney and Dimo (Ivanov, FPN) attended the second Locus Coeruleus Imaging Meeting in Magdeburg. Dimo presented his work on unravelling the sources of contrast in locus coeruleus imaging. Heidi presented her work on relating locus coeruleus - norepinephrine measures to Alzheimer's disease pathology. ​