Cynthia Carlsson, MD, MS

Position title: Director

Email: cmc@medicine.wisc.edu

Phone: (608) 263-2850

woman wearing glasses and blazer

Louis A. Holland, Sr., Professor in Alzheimer’s Disease
Department of Medicine
Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology

Dr. Carlsson is Director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute. She is a geriatrician at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, where she treats veterans with dementia and memory issues. Dr. Carlsson is a faculty member of the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology within the Department of Medicine and a Louis A. Holland, Sr., Endowed Professor in Alzheimer’s Disease. She serves as the Clinical Core leader and a co-leader for the Biomarker Core in the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center; and she is a recipient of a University of Wisconsin Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship. Dr. Carlsson is a member of the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging (NIH/NIA) Alzheimer’s Disease Centers Clinical Core Steering Committee and Clinical Task Force, and chairs several NIH/NIA research review committees.

Research Interests:

Dr. Carlsson’s research focuses on the effects of vascular risk factors and their treatments on cognition and biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease in persons at risk for dementia. Her research lab is also a site of the AHEAD study, a research study that aims to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease by enrolling participants as young as 55 and using a tailored dosing approach. She and her colleagues are also conducting clinical trials investigating the impact of vascular risk factors on risk of cognitive decline in middle-aged adults with parental history of Alzheimer’s disease; how vascular risk factors are related to biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease found in the blood, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and on MRI scans measuring brain blood flow; the relationship between endothelial function and brain blood flow in persons at risk for Alzheimer’s disease; and the effects of statins and fish oil on CSF biomarkers, brain blood flow, and cognition in asymptomatic middle-aged adults with parental history of Alzheimer’s disease.

UW-Madison Experts Database Profile

View Dr. Carlsson’s publications on NCBI My Bibliography