What can a brain autopsy reveal about dementia?

After Deborah Kan’s mother died, her family donated her brain to UCSF to help determine the cause of her dementia. The neuropathology report revealed not one diagnosis but three different neurodegenerative diseases.

In this live conversation, Deborah Kan and her sister, Susan Whitaker, will discuss their family’s decision to make the autopsy report public and what they learned from the experience. They will be joined by two UCSF neurologists who are involved in interpreting the findings.

Bruce L. Miller, MD, director of the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center and founding director of the Global Brain Health Institute at UCSF, will discuss how clinicians distinguish among different forms of dementia, including frontotemporal dementia.

David Soleimani-Meigooni, MD, a neurologist at the UCSF Fein Memory and Aging Center and assistant professor of neurology at UCSF, will discuss advances in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions, including the use of PET imaging to study amyloid and tau.

The discussion will explore what brain autopsy can reveal about dementia, why multiple neurodegenerative diseases can occur in the same brain and what families can learn from neuropathology.