People

Reisa Sperling, MD

Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Reisa Sperling is a neurologist focused on the detection and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease at the pre-symptomatic or “preclinical” stage. Dr. Sperling is a Professor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.  Dr. Sperling is the co-Principal Investigator of the Harvard Aging Brain Study, with Dr. Keith Johnson, at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She co-leads the Alzheimer Clinical Trial Consortium (ACTC), the NIA funded academic Alzheimer trial consortium, with Dr. Paul Aisen at University of Southern California, and Dr. Ron Petersen at the Mayo Clinic. For ACTC she also is also Co-Chair of the Inclusion, Diversity and Education in Alzheimer’s disease – Clinical Trials (IDEA-CT) Committee, and is a member of the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC).  Dr. Sperling chaired the 2011 NIA-Alzheimer’s Association workgroup to develop guidelines for the study of “Preclinical Alzheimer’s disease.” She leads the Anti-Amyloid Treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (A4) Study - a secondary prevention trial in over 1150 clinically normal older individuals with PET amyloid imaging evidence of early AD pathology, the companion LEARN Study, and two new AD prevention trials with the ACTC. Dr. Sperling received the 2011 Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award, the 2015 American Academy of Neurology Potamkin Prize, and was named one of the 2017 Most Disruptive Women to Watch in Healthcare.