Clinician Scientist-Programm 2026

Thema: "APOE-ε4 Genotype as a Risk Factor for Cognitive Impairment and Structural Brain Changes After Community-Acquired Pneumonia"

Zusammenfassung:
Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a leading cause of hospitalization in adults and is increasingly recognized as an important factor for sustained cognitive impairment. Although disease severity and clinical risk factors explain some outcome variability, substantial interindividual differences in cognitive recovery indicate an important contribution of biological and genetic susceptibility. Carriage of the apolipoprotein E ε4 allele (APOE-ε4), a well-known risk factor for impaired neuronal repair and neurodegenerative disease, may confer heightened vulnerability to inflammation-driven brain injury and incomplete recovery. This project aims to define the impact of APOE-ε4 status on post-infectious brain injury and recovery following CAP. Hospitalized CAP patients will be followed longitudinally with serial cognitive assessments, blood-based markers of neuronal and glial injury (neurofilament light chain [NfL] and glial fibrillary acidic protein [GFAP]), and multimodal brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). By integrating genetic risk with molecular and imaging measures, the study seeks to identify APOE-ε4–dependent mechanisms underlying persistent cognitive impairment after pneumonia and to improve risk stratification for targeted post-infectious monitoring and intervention