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




The Clinical Significance of Incidental White Matter Lesions on MRI Amongst a Diverse Population with Cognitive Complaints (INDEED)
09/30/2020 - 08/31/2025 (Subcontract PI)
University of California, Davis NIH NINDS
5U19NS120384-04

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)
The 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)
The 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)
The 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)
The 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)
The 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)
The 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.

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  1. Pinheiro A, Ekenze O, Aparicio HJ, Beiser AS, Decarli CS, Demissie S, Seshadri S, Romero JR. Multimarker Cerebral Small Vessel Disease Score and Risk of Incident Dementia in the Framingham Heart Study. Neurology. 2025 Oct 07; 105(7):e214113.View Related Profiles. PMID: 40953349; PMCID: PMC12443037; DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000214113;
     
  2. McGrath ER, Scott MR, Buckley RF, Satizabal CL, Werry AE, DeCarli CS, Ghosh S, Vasan RS, Bhasin S, Murabito JM, Beiser AS, Seshadri S. The association between reproductive factors and neurocognitive and neuroimaging markers of brain aging. J Alzheimers Dis. 2025 Oct; 107(4):1594-1604.View Related Profiles. PMID: 40924581; DOI: 10.1177/13872877251372430;
     
  3. Yiallourou S, Baril AA, Wiedner C, Misialek JR, Kline CE, Harrison S, Cannon E, Yang Q, Bernal R, Bisson A, Himali D, Cavuoto M, Weihs A, Beiser A, Gottesman RF, Leng Y, Lopez O, Lutsey PL, Purcell SM, Redline S, Seshadri S, Stone KL, Yaffe K, Ancoli-Israel S, Xiao Q, Vaou EO, Himali JJ, Pase MP. Sleep architecture and dementia risk in adults: an analysis of 5 cohorts from the Sleep and Dementia Consortium. Sleep. 2025 Sep 09; 48(9).View Related Profiles. PMID: 40377976; PMCID: PMC12417016; DOI: 10.1093/sleep/zsaf129;
     
  4. Mulligan M, Beiser AS, O'Donnell A, Banerjee A, Ghosh S, Thibault E, El Fakhri G, Johnson KA, Seshadri S, McGrath ER. A steep decline in diastolic blood pressure over early to mid-life is associated with tau-PET burden in dementia-free adults. J Alzheimers Dis. 2025 Oct; 107(4):1674-1681.View Related Profiles. PMID: 40899927; DOI: 10.1177/13872877251372561;
     
  5. Liu M, Khasiyev F, Spagnolo-Allende A, Sanchez DL, Andrews H, Yang Q, Beiser A, Qiao Y, Romero JR, Rundek T, Brickman AM, Manly JJ, Elkind MS, Seshadri S, Chen C, Del Brutto OH, Hilal S, Wasserman BA, Tosto G, Fornage M, Gutierrez J. Multi-population genome-wide association study identifies multiple novel loci associated with asymptomatic intracranial large artery stenosis. Int J Stroke. 2025 Aug 24; 17474930251374471.View Related Profiles. PMID: 40851121; DOI: 10.1177/17474930251374471;
     
  6. Araujo-Contreras R, Pinheiro AA, Ekenze O, Sisto J, Aparicio HJ, Beiser A, Himali JJ, Lioutas V, DeCarli C, Seshadri S, Demissie S, Romero JR. Multi-marker cerebral small vessel disease score and risk of incident depression: The Framingham Heart Study. J Affect Disord. 2026 Jan 01; 392:120089.View Related Profiles. PMID: 40848767; DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2025.120089;
     
  7. Biesbroek JM, de Kort FAS, Anblagan D, Bastin ME, Beiser A, Brodaty H, Chaturvedi N, Chen CPLH, Cheng B, Cheng CY, Cox SR, DeCarli C, Enzinger C, Fletcher E, Frayne R, de Groot M, Hilal S, Huang F, Ikram MA, Jiang J, Lam BYK, Maillard P, Mayer C, McCreary CR, Mok V, Muñoz Maniega S, Petersen M, Roshchupkin G, Sachdev PS, Schmidt R, Seiler S, Seshadri S, Sudre CH, Thomalla G, Valdés Hernández M, Venketasubramanian N, Vernooij MW, Vinke EJ, Wardlaw JM, Wen W, Kuijf HJ, Biessels GJ. Signature White Matter Hyperintensity Locations Associated With Vascular Risk Factors Derived From 15?653 Individuals. Stroke. 2025 Oct; 56(10):3047-3059.View Related Profiles. PMID: 40832713; PMCID: PMC12447828; DOI: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.125.051159;
     
  8. Francis L, Seshadri S, Dillard LK, Kujawa SG, Welling DB, Alcabes RL, Beiser AS. Self-Reported Hearing Aid Use and Risk of Incident Dementia. JAMA Neurol. 2025 Aug 18; 82(11):1195-7.View Related Profiles. PMID: 40824575; PMCID: PMC12362270; DOI: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2025.2713;
     
  9. Wadop YN, Bernal R, Njamnshi WY, Satizabal CL, Beiser A, Ruiz A, Njamnshi AK, Vasan RS, Seshadri S, Himali JJ, Fongang B. Altered Gut Microbiota Mediates the Association between APOE Genotype and Amyloid-ß Accumulation in Middle-Aged Adults. bioRxiv. 2025 Jul 31.View Related Profiles. PMID: 40766561; PMCID: PMC12324374; DOI: 10.1101/2025.07.27.667048;
     
  10. Ekenze O, Pinheiro A, Beiser AS, Lioutas VA, Aparicio HJ, Benjamin EJ, Vasan RS, DeCarli C, Seshadri S, Demissie S, Romero JR. Prevalent Cardiovascular Disease and Atrial Fibrillation in Relation to Cerebral Small Vessel Disease Burden. Brain Sci. 2025 Jul 29; 15(8).View Related Profiles. PMID: 40867146; PMCID: PMC12385141; DOI: 10.3390/brainsci15080813;
     
Showing 10 of 440 results. Show More

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

Bar chart showing 440 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
202434
202529
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72 E. Concord St Robinson (B)
Boston MA 02118
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