Training & Education

The Yassine Lab specializes in how genetics, changes in lipid metabolism, nutrition, and diabetes affect cognition and the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The team utilizes a translational approach that spans basic laboratory studies with animal models, novel imaging modalities and clinical trials. Dr. Yassine directs the Roybal AD Research program focused on understanding how risk factors in Los Angeles’s Latinx populations affect cognition and AD risk using longitudinal studies with cerebrospinal fluid and brain imaging biomarkers.

Over the past decade, the Yassine lab demonstrated that lower levels of serum omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) associated with greater amyloid deposition in cognitively healthy older adults. Using PET scans, Dr. Yassine’s team reported an increased incorporation coefficient for brain DHA in APOE4 suggesting a deficit in brain DHA delivery in younger healthy APOE4 carriers decades before the onset of AD. These findings led to a randomized clinical trial to understand how APOE4 affects DHA brain delivery and metabolism in persons at risk of developing AD.

Fellows joining the Yassine lab will focus on studying how diabetes and dyslipidemia in ethnic minorities increases dementia risk using imaging and biomarker studies, and will train designing and conducting clinical trials or longitudinal cohorts. Dr. Yassine leads the Research and Education Core of USC’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) training post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty. Dr. Yassine has an outstanding record of training junior scholars. Over the past decade, he has trained over 47 undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral fellows in the areas of obesity, diabetes, lipids and AD in clinical and translational research. He was recognized with several awards including the Case Western “Resident Teacher of Year Award” in 2007. He organizes and directs the annual Finch AD annual symposium where students and fellows meet to present research and have the opportunity to receive awards! More information can be found at www.yassinelab.com

Dr. Page is a physician scientist with two major research programs: (i) neuroendocrine regulation of appetite and feeding behavior (ii) maternal-fetal programming for obesity and diabetes and is the principal investigator of the BRANCH Lab for Brain Regulation of Appetite, Nutrition, Cognition at USC (for details, see www.drkatiepage.com).

Dr. Page also serves as director of the USC Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute Clinical Research Unit. She has a background in endocrinology and neuroimaging and over 15 years of experience in integrating fMRI and endocrine data to understand the neuroendocrine regulation of appetite, cognitive function, and risk for obesity and diabetes in children and adults. Her laboratory uses state-of-the-art neuroimaging methods combined with rigorous metabolic and dietary assessments and objective measures of physical activity and sleep to provide a comprehensive understanding of neuroendocrine regulation of eating behavior and metabolic risks, and the impact of lifestyle factors on these processes. To date, her studies have shown that acute ingestion of fructose compared to glucose leads to much smaller increases in circulating levels of insulin, greater activation of brain appetite and reward regions, and increases in appetitive behavior. These studies provide mechanistic insights into epidemiological evidence linking fructose consumption to overeating and obesity. Current studies in her laboratory are aimed at understanding effects of sugar and non-nutritive sweeteners on brain reward and appetite pathways and eating behavior in obese, overweight, and lean individuals and the role of in utero exposures to maternal gestational diabetes mellitus and obesity on brain development and obesity and type 2 diabetes risk in children. Dr. Page’s long-term vision is to identify mechanisms and markers of disease in people at highest risk for obesity and diabetes, whether related to in utero exposure to maternal metabolic disorders or other environmental influences, and to develop at test interventions to prevent obesity and its related complications. Her multidisciplinary team includes collaborators in neuroimaging, psychology, preventive medicine and statistics, and trainees at all levels including undergraduate students, medical students, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty. She is committed to providing exceptional mentorship to endocrine fellows and to teaching trainees about the roles of neuroendocrine regulation of appetite and early-life programming in health and disease and applying these concepts into valuable experiences in clinical-translational research.