McCance Center Seminar Series: Jasmeer Chhatwal, MD PhD, MMSc

Why It Matters

By refining preclinical risk stratification, clinicians can target interventions earlier, potentially slowing disease progression and reducing the looming public‑health burden of Alzheimer’s.

Key Takeaways

• Early biomarker imaging reveals preclinical Alzheimer pathology before symptoms
• Amyloid positivity alone does not guarantee imminent cognitive decline
• Vascular risk factors significantly influence progression among amyloid‑positive individuals
• Harvard Aging Brain Study tracks longitudinal cognition using PET, CSF, and genetics
• Mixed pathologies, especially cerebrovascular disease, complicate Alzheimer risk stratification

Summary

The McCance Center seminar featured Dr. Jasmeer Chhatwal, an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, who outlined his translational neuroscience program’s focus on early‑onset, genetically driven Alzheimer’s disease and the use of cutting‑edge biomarkers and neuroimaging to detect risk before clinical symptoms appear.

Chhatwal highlighted that amyloid PET and CSF beta‑42 changes emerge years before cognitive decline, but amyloid positivity alone does not guarantee imminent impairment. Data from the Mayo Clinic and the Harvard Aging Brain Study show many amyloid‑positive individuals remain stable, suggesting additional factors modulate progression.

He presented evidence that cerebrovascular pathology—quantified via Framingham risk scores and white‑matter hyperintensity burden—strongly predicts which amyloid‑positive participants will decline, while mixed neuropathologies are common in older brains. The Harvard Aging Brain Study’s ten‑year longitudinal tracking of cognition, PET, and blood biomarkers illustrates this heterogeneity.

The findings argue for a multimodal risk model that integrates amyloid status, vascular health, and other pathologies to identify candidates for early therapeutic intervention, a strategy essential to curb the projected rise of Alzheimer’s cases and associated societal costs.

Original Description

Jasmeer Chhatwal, MD PhD, MMSc, Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, a practicing neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals (BWH), and a member of the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, presents: Staying sharp as we age: Integrating lifestyle and clinical factors with the latest in biomarkers.

McCance Center for Brain Health Seminar Series: February 23, 2026

https://www.massgeneral.org/neurology/mccance-center