About F.J. (Frank) Wolters MD
Introduction
Vascular brain injury is the second most common cause of dementia, but preventive or curative treatments are lacking. Trained at Oxford, Rotterdam and Harvard, I combine my expertise in research methodology with experience in clinical neurology to further the prevention of vascular cognitive impairment and post-stroke dementia. Our research group focuses on identifying markers for risk of cognitive deterioration in patients with vascular disease, notably on brain imaging, cardiac imaging, and in serum.
By studying the relation of vascular brain disease with heart disease, but also Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative pathology, this line of research helps understand the interplay of comorbidity in a single individual and determine which patients are at high risk of cognitive decline after vascular brain injury. This contributes to the ultimate development of means for targeted primary and secondary prevention in a growing number of elderly patients with cognitive impairment.
With the same aim in mind, an important part of my work centres around epidemiological methods to improve causal inference from clinical research, as well as large-scale datasets.
Field(s) of expertise
Education and career
- 2018 PhD Neuro-epidemiology (cum laude), Erasmus University Rotterdam
- 2016-2017 Visiting scholar, Harvard School of Public Health
- 2016 MSc Epidemiology, Erasmus University Roterdam
- 2012-2014 Research Fellow, University of Oxford (UK)
- 2011 Teaching qualification
- 2011 MD, Utrecht University
Publications
For a complete list of publications please see pubmed
Selected publications
- Wolters FJ, Chibnik LB, Waziry R, et al. – 27-year time trends in dementia incidence in Europe and the US: the Alzheimer Cohorts Consortium. Neurology. 2020;95(5):e519-e531.
- Wolters FJ, Ikram MA – Epidemiology of vascular dementia. Arterioscl Thromb Vasc Biol. 2019;39:1542-9.
- Wolters FJ, Zonneveld HI, Hofman A, et al. – Cerebral perfusion and the risk of dementia: a population-based study. Circulation. 2017;136(8):719-728.
- Wolters FJ, Boender J, de Vries PS, et al. – Von Willebrand factor and ADAMTS13 activity in relation to risk of dementia: a population-based study. Sci Rep. 2018;8(1):5474.
- Wolters FJ, Segufa RA, Darweesh SKL, et al. – Coronary heart disease, heart failure, and the risk of dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Alzheimers Dement. 2018;14(11):1493-1504.