Elaine Peskind, MD

Personal Statement

I am Co-Director of the VA VISN 20 (Northwest Network) Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC). I am also the Friends of Alzheimer’s Research Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine and am Associate Director of the UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. My research over the past 30 years has addressed cognitive and behavioral problems and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers in neurodegenerative dementing disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. More recently, my research has focused on combat trauma posttraumatic stress disorder and the clinical phenomenology as well as neuroimaging and CSF biomarkers of neurodegeneration in combat blast concussion mild traumatic brain injury and in Gulf War Veterans Illness. I continue to conduct single site as well as multi-site large scale studies of CSF biomarkers and pharmacological treatment trials for behavioral disorders and traumatic brain injury.

Summary of my research program:

Blast Concussion Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI)
Strategies: multimodal neuroimaging: structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (diffusion tensor imaging [DTI], DTI tractography, macromolecular proton fraction mapping, resting state and task-based functional MRI; susceptibility-weighted imaging, FDG-positron emission tomography [PET]; cerebrospinal fluid and plasma biomarkers; genetic risk factors; clinical, neurocognitive and behavioral assessments,

Gulf War Veterans Illness (GWVI)
Strategies: multimodal neuroimaging and CSF and plasma biomarkers as described above, epigenetics, pain sensitivity testing and ability to activate endogenous opioid systems, and functional activity of paraoxonase I, the enzyme that metabolizes organophosphate insecticides.

Cerebrospinal Fluid and Plasma Biomarkers of Neurodegeneration Strategies: Bead-based multiplex assays using Luminex and Meso-Scale platforms, Quanterix ultra-sensitive platform, and broad-scale mass spectrometry for measurement of proteins, circulating RNAs, microRNAs in collaboration with VA/UW and Institute for Systems Biology investigators.

Pharmacologic Treatment of Disruptive Agitation in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)
Strategies: Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study multi-center randomized placebo-controlled trial of the alpha-1 adrenoreceptor antagonist, prazosin, for treatment of disruptive agitation in AD.

Department Affiliations

Recent Publications

Centralizing prescreening data collection to inform data-driven approaches to clinical trial recruitment.
(2023 May 2)
Alzheimers Res Ther 15(1): 88
Kirn DR, Grill JD, Aisen P, Ernstrom K, Gale S, Heidebrink J, Jicha G, Jimenez-Maggiora G, Johnson L, Peskind E, McCann K, Shaffer E, Sultzer D, Wang S, Sperling R, Raman R

Timing matters: Sex differences in inflammatory and behavioral outcomes following repetitive blast mild traumatic brain injury.
(2023 May)
Brain Behav Immun 110(): 222-236
Baskin BM, Logsdon AF, Janet Lee S, Foresi BD, Peskind E, Banks WA, Cook DG, Schindler AG

A randomized controlled clinical trial of prazosin for alcohol use disorder in active duty soldiers: Predictive effects of elevated cardiovascular parameters.
(2023 Feb)
Alcohol Clin Exp Res 47(2): 348-360
Raskind MA, Williams T, Holmes H, Hart K, Crews L, Poupore EL, Thomas RG, Darnell J, Daniels C, Goke K, Hendrickson R, Terry G, Mayer C, Simpson T, Saxon A, Rasmussen D, Peskind ER

SOBA: Development and testing of a soluble oligomer binding assay for detection of amyloidogenic toxic oligomers.
(2022 Dec 13)
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 119(50): e2213157119
Shea D, Colasurdo E, Smith A, Paschall C, Jayadev S, Keene CD, Galasko D, Ko A, Li G, Peskind E, Daggett V

The dynorphin/kappa opioid receptor mediates adverse immunological and behavioral outcomes induced by repetitive blast trauma.
(2022 Dec 3)
J Neuroinflammation 19(1): 288
Lee SJ, Logsdon AF, Yagi M, Baskin BM, Peskind ER, Raskind MM, Cook DG, Schindler AG

Show complete publication list »
Edit Profile