The Health, Brain & Cognition Lab congratulates six-year team member Dr. Bryan Madero on his appointment as Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Bryan was awarded the Translational Imaging in Radiopharmaceutical Science T32 fellowship which will allow him to build on skills and knowledge gained both at the University of California, Riverside, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology, and at the University of Iowa, where he was awarded his PhD in Behavioral Cognitive Neuroscience. “I’m really excited about being able to continue my research interests,” he says. “It extends the work I’ve been doing here.”
“This will open up a new chapter of my research training where I can learn and add PET imaging to my existing skillset of MRI. I’m going to study how white matter structure and cerebral blood flow can be characterized with a PET tracer that has primarily been used for amyloid burden characterization in Alzheimer’s disease.”
-- Dr. Bryan Madero
Bryan will be co-mentored by Dr. Manu Goyal in the Vlassenko/Goyal Lab and Dr. Bryian Gordon in the Gordon Neuroimaging Lab at WashU. “This will open up a new chapter of my research training where I can learn and add PET imaging to my existing skillset of MRI,” says Bryan. “I’m going to study how white matter structure and cerebral blood flow can be characterized with a PET tracer that has primarily been used for amyloid burden characterization in Alzheimer’s disease.”
The research aims to characterize three different aging pathologies that can be tracked in middle-aged and older subjects. The aim is to gain a better understanding of who is at risk for cognitive decline, including those at risk for structural changes such as the degradation of the folds and valleys of the cerebral cortex called sulci and gyri. One focus of Bryan’s research at the HBC Lab has been understanding the correlations between cognitive decline and changes in sulci and gyri.
Bryan developed his skills in receiving, processing and assessing MRI data as a mentee to Dr. Ilana J. Bennett at the LANI Lab at UC-Riverside, then built on that base with independent research in the HBC Lab under the direction of Dr. Michelle Voss. His interest in the correlates that drive individual differences in learning and memory as we age motivates him to better understand the aging pathologies that affect those correlates, and lifestyle factors that may delay or prevent cognitive decline. “The goal is to tie everything I’ve learned together — exercise, intervention, cognitive training — and shift it earlier instead of how we’re currently just applying it to older adults.”
Looking back on his time in Iowa City, Bryan recalls arriving in 2020, “at the peak of the pandemic. My first year was just four walls of the apartment.” The town has grown on him. “I’m going to miss the ‘big little city’, how the community is close-knit and tied together. All these different activities and community events that are accessible.”
“The lab’s always changing, everyone leaves an impact on each other’s work, growth and development. I will miss everyone. Everyone plays a part in that journey. The dream would be that I have the opportunity to collaborate with Michelle in the future or members from the lab, along with Dr. Bennett. They have given me the foundation.”
“What stands out most about Bryan is his combination of scientific curiosity, persistence, and genuine care for the people around him. He brought those qualities from the moment he interviewed for our lab. At the time, I could never have imagined that he would begin graduate school during a pandemic, but those very qualities enabled him to persevere through that challenge, grow from it, and become someone who has enriched our lab culture ever since.”
-- Dr. Michelle Voss, HBC Lab Director
“What stands out most about Bryan is his combination of scientific curiosity, persistence, and genuine care for the people around him,” says Michelle. “He brought those qualities from the moment he interviewed for our lab. At the time, I could never have imagined that he would begin graduate school during a pandemic, but those very qualities enabled him to persevere through that challenge, grow from it, and become someone who has enriched our lab culture ever since.”
Observing Bryan’s progress as an independent researcher has been satisfying, Michelle added. “From early in his graduate career, Bryan took ownership of developing the research ideas that ultimately became his dissertation. Watching those ideas evolve has been one of the most rewarding parts of mentoring him. I've learned so much through that process, and it has been a joy to see his initial curiosity grow into a deep and unmistakable passion for science. I'm excited to see where that passion, together with his strengths in statistics, writing, mentoring, and scientific communication, will take him.
“One of the great privileges of mentoring students is realizing how much they teach us in return. I'm incredibly grateful for everything Bryan has brought to me and to our lab. We will miss him, and we wish him all the best in the next chapter of his career.”
“Michelle has been so supportive,” says Bryan. “She has guided me through every major milestone. She is always the biggest fan of her students, even when they are staring down the barrel of uncertainty, giving them confidence to continue, to present, to apply for things, to push forward. I’m incredibly grateful for her as a mentor.”
He also credits Dr. Eliot Hazeltine, a member of his dissertation committee as an “unofficial mentor”, always willing to provide advice, guidance and feedback.