Karolinska Institute

The Karolinska Institute is one of the largest medical universities in Europe. In providing education, research and information, the Karolinska Institute contributes to the improvement of human health. Each year, the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute nominates the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Karolinska offers 20 study programs in the medical and healthcare field and conducts more than 40 per cent of all academic medical research in Sweden. In its capacity as innovation centre for the life sciences, the Karolinska Institute also contributes to the welfare and prosperity of Sweden and the Stockholm region.

Role in CoSTREAM

The Karolinska Institute will be the leader of Work Package 4 on compensatory mechanisms and collaborate with three other partners as part of this Work Package. In Work Package 4, Karolinska's clinical data will be integrated with amyloid PET, MRI and GWAS examinations to demonstrate in vivo that high brain reserve through healthy behaviours and stimulating lifestyles may counteract the deleterious effects of genetic susceptibility and metabolic abnormalities on stroke leading to accumulation of brain lesions linked to dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Key staff

Prof. Laura Fratiglioni, Professor (female) is the director at the Aging Research Center (ARC) of Karolinska Institutet. She has worked extensively in population-based longitudinal studies both in Italy and Sweden, becoming an internationally known researcher in the field of AD and dementia. More recently, she has started new research lines including MCI, physical disability, and multi-morbidity in the elderly. Her current hypothesis is that the complex interactions among body, mind and environment may explain the high number of elderly affected by cognitive disorders. She is a well-known researcher in neuroepidemiology. She has many years of experiences in the research of neurological disorders such as stroke and Alzheimer’s diseases. She received many rewards due to her significant contribution to the field.

Dr. Weili Xu is an associated professor at ARC, Karolinska Institutet. She has been involved in the research on the impact of metabolic disorders on cognitive aging, and risk factors for metabolic disorders based on large population-based studies. Her research has involved extensive collaborations across Europe, USA and Asia. Her major research interest is epidemiological studies of metabolic disorders and their relation to cognitive aging and dementia with the ultimate goal of the development of intervention strategies against metabolic (such as diabetes and obesity) and dementing disorders. She has recently started new research lines on genetic and molecular link between metabolic and dementing disorders, and the role of dietary intake in the development of the two disorders