# Evaluation of dopaminergic mechanisms in the DM tau mouse

> **NIH NIH R21** · FEINSTEIN INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH · 2020 · $460,625

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Psychotic Alzheimer’s disease (AD+P) is a distinct AD variant with a more rapid cognitive deterioration and a
hastened mortality for which safe and effective treatment is lacking. CSF biomarker and neuropathological
studies suggest that AD+P results from an acceleration of tau phosphorylation. The development of novel
compounds to treat AD+P would be facilitated by the development of a preclinical behavioral model, made
possible by neuropathological correlation studies that uniquely identify tau phosphorylation in psychosis risk.
The NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative provides a framework for the transdiagnostic
conceptualization of psychosis risk driven by dopamine, and has been incorporated in the design of a novel
candidate behavioral model of AD+P that is characterized by increased dopaminergic tone and
hyperphophorylated tau- the DM mouse. In the proposed application the DM and other tau models will be utilized
in order to investigate dopamine in a pharmacological induction paradigm of AD+P, and in order to study the
relationship between tau phosphorylation and psychosis-relevant behaviors. The completion of the proposed set
of experiments may point the way to further research in the development of a preclinical avenue for drug
development in the treatment of AD+P.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9897091
- **Project number:** 1R21AG067789-01
- **Recipient organization:** FEINSTEIN INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH
- **Principal Investigator:** JEREMY KOPPEL
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $460,625
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-01-15 → 2022-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9897091

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9897091, Evaluation of dopaminergic mechanisms in the DM tau mouse (1R21AG067789-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9897091. Licensed CC0.

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