Alexa Beiser, PhD
Professor
Boston University School of Public Health
Biostatistics

PhD, Boston University
MA, University of California, San Diego
BA, University of California, Santa Cruz



Alexa Beiser has been on the faculty at Boston University School of Public Health since 1985, engaged in teaching and collaborative public health research; she co-developed the doctoral program in biostatistics; co-directed the biostatistics program from 2000-2004, and served as Associate Chair for Education from 2015-2018. She formerly taught and coordinated the sections of Introduction to Statistical Computing. For more than twenty-five years, Dr. Beiser has served as the lead biostatistician for the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) neurology group, examining risk factors and prevalence and incidence of clinical and sub-clinical neurological outcomes including MRI and PET measures of brain structure, cognitive performance, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and epilepsy. Dr. Beiser currently leads the FHS neurology group data management team, responsible for surveillance and tracking of incident dementia, for supervision of recruitment of participants for various grant-funded studies, and for management of data collected at FHS as well as those measured or processed at other institutions (e.g., brain MRI or PET scans); and the FHS neurology group biostatistics team of six biostatisticians. Decades of examining risk factors for neurological diseases has naturally led to studying factors associated with accelerated brain aging. Dr. Beiser has coauthored FHS publications relating risk factors including midlife vascular factors, plasma homocysteine, plasma leptin levels, cardiac index, red blood cell omega-3 fatty acids, metabolic dysregulation, visceral fat, air pollution; serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor; and insulin-like growth factor 1, to measures of brain aging. Dr. Beiser also has made use of the richness of the multigenerational Framingham data to relate documented parental dementia and stroke to offspring stroke, cognitive performance, and MRI measures of brain structure. In investigations of clinical neurological endpoints, she has applied competing risk analyses and has also been able to investigate temporal trends in prevalent and incident neurological disease due to the availability of event surveillance over many decades. In all these studies, Dr. Beiser plays a key role in project conceptualization, is responsible for supervision of statistical data management, analysis, and interpretation of results, and contributes to manuscript preparation and critical review.

Professor
Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
Neurology


Investigator
Framingham Heart Study


Associate Chair
Boston University School of Public Health
Biostatistics


Boston Medical Center




The Clinical Significance of Incidental White Matter Lesions on MRI Amongst a Diverse Population with Cognitive Complaints (INDEED)
09/30/2020 - 08/31/2026 (Subcontract PI)
University of California, Davis NIH NINDS
5U19NS120384-03

Multidimensional Assessment of Brain Health as A Marker of Dementia Risk and Resilience in the Framingham Study
09/15/2020 - 05/31/2025 (Subcontract PI)
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio NIH NIA
5R01AG066524-05

Contributions of sleep to preclinical and clinical Alzheimer's disease
04/01/2020 - 02/28/2025 (Subcontract PI)
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio NIH NIA
5R01AG062531-04

Blood-based biomarkers for early detection of preclinical neurocognitive disorders
12/01/2021 - 11/30/2023 (PI)
National University of Ireland Galway


Cognitively Healthy Nonagenarians in the Cross Cohort Collaboration (CCC)
09/01/2018 - 06/30/2023 (Subcontract PI)
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio NIH NIA
1RF1AG059421-01

Temporal Trends, Novel Imaging and Molecular Characterization of Preclinical and Clinical Alzheimer Disease in Framingham Cohorts
12/01/2017 - 05/31/2023 (Subcontract PI)
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio NIH NIA
5R01AG054076-05

Microglial, Inflammatory and Omics Markers of Cerebral Small Vessel Disease in the CHARGE Consortium
09/15/2018 - 07/31/2022 (Subcontract PI)
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio NIH NINDS
5UH3NS100605-05

Microglial, Inflammatory and Omics Markers of Cerebral Small Vessel Disease in the CHARGE Consortium
12/01/2017 - 09/14/2018 (Subcontract PI)
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio NIH NINDS
7UH3NS100605-03



Title


Yr Title Project-Sub Proj Pubs

Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Faculty can login to make corrections and additions.

iCite Analysis       Copy PMIDs To Clipboard

  1. Birkenbihl C, Cuppels M, Boyle RT, Klinger HM, Langford O, Coughlan GT, Properzi MJ, Chhatwal J, Price JC, Schultz AP, Rentz DM, Amariglio RE, Johnson KA, Gottesman RF, Mukherjee S, Maruff P, Lim YY, Masters CL, Beiser A, Resnick SM, Hughes TM, Burnham S, Tunali I, Landau S, Cohen AD, Johnson SC, Betthauser TJ, Seshadri S, Lockhart SN, O'Bryant SE, Vemuri P, Sperling RA, Hohman TJ, Donohue MC, Buckley RF. Rethinking the residual approach: leveraging statistical learning to operationalize cognitive resilience in Alzheimer's disease. Brain Inform. 2025 Jan 27; 12(1):3.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39871006; PMCID: PMC11772644; DOI: 10.1186/s40708-024-00249-4;
     
  2. Vered S, Beiser AS, Sulimani L, Sznitman S, Ghosh S, Lewitus GM, Meiri D, Seshadri S, Weinstein G. Circulating Endocannabinoids and Cognitive Function in Older Adults. Aging Dis. 2025 Jan 06.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39812547
     
  3. Charisis S, Mourtzi N, Scott MR, Ntanasi E, Mamalaki E, Hatzimanolis A, Ramirez A, Lambert JC, Yannakoulia M, Kosmidis M, Dardiotis E, Hadjigeorgiou G, Sakka P, Satizabal CL, Beiser A, Yang Q, Georgakis M?, Seshadri S, Scarmeas N. Genetic predisposition to high circulating levels of interleukin 6 and risk for Alzheimer's disease. Discovery and replication. J Prev Alzheimers Dis. 2025 Jan; 12(1):100018.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39800457
     
  4. Weinstein G, Kojis D, Banerjee A, Seshadri S, Walker M, Beiser AS. Ultra-processed food consumption and risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease: The Framingham Heart Study. J Prev Alzheimers Dis. 2025 Feb; 12(2):100042.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39863327
     
  5. Liu X, Maillard P, Barisano G, Caprihan A, Cen S, Shao X, Jann K, Ringman JM, Lu H, Arfanakis K, DeCarli CS, Gold BT, Seshadri S, Satizabal CL, Beiser AS, Habes M, Kramer JH, Stables L, Singh H, Helmer KG, Greenberg SM, Wang DJJ. MRI free water mediates the association between diffusion tensor image analysis along the perivascular space and executive function in four independent middle to aged cohorts. Alzheimers Dement. 2025 Feb; 21(2):e14453.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39740225; PMCID: PMC11851321; DOI: 10.1002/alz.14453;
     
  6. van Lent DM, Mesa HG, Short MI, Gonzales MM, Aparicio HJ, Salinas J, Yuan C, Jacques PF, Beiser A, Seshadri S, Jacob ME, Himali JJ. Association between dietary inflammatory index score and incident dementia. Alzheimers Dement. 2025 Jan; 21(1):e14390.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39641390; PMCID: PMC11772702; DOI: 10.1002/alz.14390;
     
  7. Young VM, Bernal R, Baril AA, Zeynoun J, Wiedner C, Gaona C, Beiser A, Teixeira AL, Salardini A, Pase MP, Himali JJ, Seshadri S. Long Sleep Duration, Cognitive Performance, and the Moderating Role of Depression: A Cross-Sectional Analysis in the Framingham Heart Study. medRxiv. 2024 Dec 03.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39677456; PMCID: PMC11643162; DOI: 10.1101/2024.12.02.24318350;
     
  8. van Lent DM, Jacques PF, Charisis SM, Mesa HG, Satizabal C, Yuan C, Vasan RS, Seshadri S, Beiser A, Himali JJ, Jacob ME. Dietary inflammatory index scores and cognitive aging: results from the Framingham heart Study offspring cohort. medRxiv. 2024 Nov 28.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39649578; PMCID: PMC11623757; DOI: 10.1101/2024.11.27.24318084;
     
  9. Luckey AM, Ghosh S, Wang CP, Beiser A, Bernal R, Li Z, Mbangdadji D, Fadaee E, Snoussi H, Dediós AGV, Trevino HA, Goss M, Hillmer LJ, Bauer CE, Staffaroni AM, Stables L, Albert M, Himali JJ, Mosley TH, Forsberg L, Guðnason V, Singh B, Singh H, Schwab K, Kramer JH, Rosenberg GA, Helmer KG, Greenberg SM, Habes M, Wang DJJ, Gold BT, Lu H, Caprihan A, Fornage M, Launer LJ, Arfanakis K, Seshadri S, DeCarli C, Maillard P, Satizabal CL. Biological validation of peak-width of skeletonized mean diffusivity as a VCID biomarker: The MarkVCID Consortium. Alzheimers Dement. 2024 Dec; 20(12):8814-8824.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39569745; PMCID: PMC11667514; DOI: 10.1002/alz.14345;
     
  10. de Kort FAS, Vinke EJ, van der Lelij EJ, Anblagan D, Bastin ME, Beiser A, Brodaty H, Chaturvedi N, Cheng B, Cox SR, DeCarli C, Enzinger C, Fletcher E, Frayne R, de Groot M, Huang F, Ikram MA, Jiang J, Lam BYK, Maillard P, Mayer C, McCreary CR, Mok V, Maniega SM, Petersen M, Roshchupkin G, Sachdev PS, Schmidt R, Seiler S, Seshadri S, Sudre CH, Thomalla G, Twerenbold R, Valdés Hernández M, Vernooij MW, Wardlaw JM, Wen W, Kuijf HJ, Biessels GJ, Biesbroek JM. Cerebral white matter hyperintensity volumes: Normative age- and sex-specific values from 15 population-based cohorts comprising 14,876 individuals. Neurobiol Aging. 2025 Feb; 146:38-47.View Related Profiles. PMID: 39602940
     
Showing 10 of 414 results. Show More

This graph shows the total number of publications by year, by first, middle/unknown, or last author.

Bar chart showing 414 publications over 39 distinct years, with a maximum of 36 publications in 2022

YearPublications
19841
19861
19882
19891
19914
19921
19937
19943
19953
19962
19974
19985
19994
20006
20013
20025
20035
200410
20054
20068
20074
20085
200911
20109
20118
201211
201315
201414
201525
201626
201729
201814
201926
202015
202122
202236
202328
202433
20254
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72 E. Concord St Robinson (B)
Boston MA 02118
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