A Wayne State University Physician Group doctor was recently named an opinion leader and advisor for a project titled Development of a Harmonized Protocol for Hippocampal Segmentation: An International EADC-ADNI Joint Project.

Craig Watson, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Neurology for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, will serve in that role in the international, multi-center joint project of the European Alzheimer Disease Consortium and the Alzheimer Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. The project seeks to develop a single "harmonized" protocol for the magnetic resonance imaging-based manual segmentation of the hippocampus to enhance this "gold standard procedure" for use as a diagnostic biomarker and outcome measure in Alzheimer's disease research and treatment.

The 12 most commonly used MRI-based hippocampal volume measurement protocols were selected to participate in this harmonization process. Project developers said Dr. Watson's protocol was chosen because, "This protocol is particularly detailed, among the most cited in the general literature (443 citations), and the fourth most cited in the Alzheimer's disease literature (70 citations)."

Dr. Watson is also the founding director of the Wayne State University/Detroit Medical Center Comprehensive Epilepsy Program.