The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has awarded a five-year NIH K23 Career Development Award to Shixie Jiang, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Florida and Director of the Delirium Neurorecovery Lab, to investigate the brain mechanisms underlying intensive care unit (ICU) delirium and the relationship between delirium and long-term cognitive impairment after critical illness. The project will utilize advanced diffuse optical tomography (DOT), a portable, non-invasive optical neuroimaging technology, to characterize changes in cerebral hemodynamics and functional brain connectivity during delirium and throughout recovery after critical illness.
Delirium affects millions of hospitalized adults each year and is associated with prolonged hospitalization, increased mortality, and an increased risk of long-term cognitive impairment and dementia. Despite its substantial clinical impact, the underlying neurobiology of delirium remains poorly understood. Unlike conventional neuroimaging modalities, DOT provides portable three-dimensional measurements of brain function at the bedside, making it uniquely suited to study critically ill patients during active delirium. This research seeks to identify objective neuroimaging biomarkers of delirium and better understand how acute brain dysfunction during critical illness contributes to persistent cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD).
The project brings together a multidisciplinary team with expertise in psychiatry, critical care medicine, neurology, neuropsychology, and biomedical engineering. The research will be conducted through the Delirium Neurorecovery Lab at the University of Florida in collaboration with the Sepsis and Critical Illness Research Center, where Dr. Philip Efron serves as a career development mentor on the award.
Dr. Jiang’s long-term research goal is to develop objective neuroimaging biomarkers and physiology-guided neuromodulation strategies to improve brain recovery after critical illness and reduce the risk of dementia following delirium.