Brad Dickerson

Brad Dickerson, MD is Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Tom Rickles Chair in Progressive Aphasia Research, Leader of the Neuroimaging Core of the MGH Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and Director of the Frontotemporal Disorders Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital, an integrated multidisciplinary unit dedicated to the highest level of care of patients with these conditions. Dr. Dickerson is also a behavioral neurologist in the MGH Memory Disorders Unit. Dr. Dickerson is an active clinical consultant in many aspects of cognitive and behavioral neurology of neurodegenerative and related disorders, including frontotemporal dementia, primary progressive aphasia, Alzheimer's, mild cognitive impairment, posterior cortical atrophy, and related conditions, and the use of neuroimaging and other diagnostic markers in neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Dickerson runs a multidisciplinary team of 30 clinicians and scientists using advanced brain imaging and behavioral methods to study how memory, language, emotion, and social behaviors change in normal aging and in patients with neurodegenerative disease, with extensive funding from the National Institutes of Health. His team also studies new approaches to caregiving. He has published more than 195 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has edited two books on dementia. He is active in mentoring trainees and in teaching, is Chair of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Council of the Massachusetts Alzheimer's Association and is Chair-Elect of the national Medical Advisory Council of the Association for FTD. He has won a number of awards, including the American Academy of Neurology’s Norman Geschwind Award in Behavioral Neurology.

Research

In Brad Dickerson's Laboratory, we seek to understand the relationships between brain anatomy, physiology, and behavior in humans across the lifespan and in those with neurodegenerative diseases. Major focus areas of our research include: memory abilities and the brain systems that subserve them in normal individuals and how these abilities and brain systems change with aging, Alzheimer's disease, and related disorders (including frontotemporal dementias and posterior cortical atrophy); understanding how aging, Alzheimer's disease, and related disorders alter the normal anatomy and function of the human brain, and determining whether this knowledge can assist in diagnosis and monitoring of these conditions; and the further development of new neuroimaging and behavioral technology for making quantitative measurements of these abilities and brain systems. We are also pursuing studies of language and semantic knowledge in progressive aphasias; and social cognition and affective processing in normal aging and how these are affected by frontotemporal dementias and Alzheimer's disease. In addition, we pursue some investigations related to the development and promotion of capacities to compensate for age- and disease-related changes.

Departments, Centers, & Programs:

• Neurology
  • Memory Disorders

Clinical Interests:

• Alzheimer's Disease
• Frontotemporal Dementia
• Memory disorders
• Posterior Cortical Atrophy
• Primary Progressive Aphasia
• The interface of neurological and psychiatric illnesses

Medical Education

• MD, University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford
• Residency, Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Fellowship, Brigham and Women's Hospital

American Board Certifications

• Neurology, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology