Sheina Emrani, PhD, came to dementia research through both science and personal experience. Seeing a family member live with Alzheimer’s disease gave her an early understanding of how deeply cognitive decline can affect an entire family. It also shaped the questions that continue to guide her work today, especially how health, environment, and life circumstances influence the course of disease.
Dr. Emrani is a postdoctoral fellow in the Frontotemporal Degeneration Center and a Clark Scholar at the Penn Memory Center (PMC). As a neuropsychologist, she is interested in why symptoms do not always match what might be expected from disease proteins alone. She studies how other factors, including inflammation in the brain and broader life circumstances such as education, occupation, and socioeconomic conditions, may help explain why some people experience more severe symptoms or faster decline than others.
“The thinking and behavior symptoms we see across Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are not always explained by the disease proteins alone,” Dr. Emrani said. “Other influences, including neuroinflammation and structural and social determinants of health, can shape how mild or severe symptoms become and the rate of progression.”
Her work as a Clark Scholar examines the relationship between neuroinflammation and cognition in frontotemporal dementia (FTD) using digital neuropathology and ultra-high-resolution MRI, which can capture iron-rich inflammation in the brain. By better understanding these added layers of disease, she hopes to improve prognosis, support earlier and more personalized care, and help guide the development of treatments aimed at slowing symptom progression.
