Yu-Chien Wu, MD, PhD

Bio

I joined IUSM as Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences and became a tenured Associate Professor in 2019. I received a MD degree and license in Taiwan. Later, I earned my PhD in Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006.

While I am a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Physicist by training, my research focuses on diffusion physics in biologic system using diffusion MRI. I started to work on diffusion MRI extensively in my graduate education. I continued to advance in this field independently at Dartmouth College (2009-2013) and currently at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Key Publications

Shahid SS, Wen Q, Risacher SL, Farlow MR, Unverzagt FW, Apostolova LG, Foroud TM, Zetterberg H, Blennow K, Saykin AJ, Wu YC^†. Hippocampal-subfield microstructures and their relation to plasma biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease. Brain. 2022;145(6):2149-2160. 10.1093/brain/awac138. (IP= 15.26) featured in the editorial commentary
Wu YC^†, Harezlak J, Mustafi SM, Elsaid NMH, Lin Z, Wen Q, Riggen LD, Koch KM, Nencka AS, Meier TB, Mayer AR, Wang Y, Giza CC, DiFiori JP, Guskiewicz KM, Mihalik JP, LaConte SM, Duma SM, Broglio SP, Saykin AJ, McCrea MA, McAllister TW. Longitudinal White-Matter Abnormalities in Sports-Related Concussion: A Diffusion MRI study. Neurology. 2020;95(7):781-792. (IP=11.8) featured in the editorial commentary
Wu YC^†, Wen Q, Gill JM, Thukral R, Gao S, Lane KA, Meier TB, Riggen LD, Harezlak J, Giza CC, Goldman J, Guskiewicz KM, Mihalik JP, LaConte SM, Duma SM, Broglio SP, Saykin AJ, McAllister TW, McCrea MA. Longitudinal associations between blood biomarkers and white-matter MRI in sport-related concussion: A study of the NCAA-DoD CARE Consortium. Neurology 2023
Wen Q^†, Risacher SL, Xie L, Li J, HarezlakJ, FarlowMR, Unverzagt FW, GaoS, ApostolovaLG, Saykin AJ, and WuYC^†. Tau-Related White-Matter Alterations Along Spatially Selective Pathways. NeuroImage. 2021;226.
Martinez P, Patel H, You Y, Jury N, Perkins A, Lee-Gosselin A, Taylor X, You Y, Di Prisco GV, Huang X, Dutta S, Wijeratne A, Redding-Ochoa J, Shahid SS, Mosley AL, Wu YC, McKinzie D, Rochet C, Zhang J, Atwood B, Troncoso J, Lasagna-Reeves CA. Bassoon contributes to tau-seed neurotoxicity and propagation. Nature neuroscience. 2022 Accepted (IP=24.88)
Grecco GG, Shahid S, Atwood BK, Wu YC^†. Alterations of Brain Microstructures in a Mouse Model of Prenatal Opioid Exposure Detected by Diffusion MRI. Scientific Reports, 2022
Shahid S, Grecco GG, Atwood BK, Wu YC. Perturbed neurochemical and microstructural organization in a mouse model of prenatal opioid exposure: a multi-modal magnetic resonance study. Plos One, 2023

Titles & Appointments

Associate Professor of Radiology & Imaging Sciences
Director, In-Vivo Imaging Core, Indiana Institute for Biomedical Imaging Sciences (IIBIS)
Director, Roberts Translational Imaging Facility, STARK Neurosciences Research Institute (SNRI)
Director, Advanced Imaging Research Group (SNRI) and Program (IIBIS)
Co-Director, Neuroimaging Core, Indiana Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (IADRC)

Education

2006 PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison

2001 RES Radiology Residency, Year 1, Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan

2000 MD Kaohsiung Medical University

1994 BS National Taiwan University
Research

The focus of my research program is to develop innovative MRI neuroimaging technologies for elucidating disease mechanisms, facilitating early diagnoses, and identifying optimal treatments. To this end, I obtained funding from NIA and NINDS as PI to detect early alterations in living human brains with neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), and sport-related concussion (SRC). I was also awarded several internal grants to develop super-resolution diffusion imaging technologies for imaging gray matter and neurofluid in perivascular spaces (part of the brain clearance system). My research program has recently extended to preclinical imaging on rodent models of human diseases, such as AD, small vascular diseases, and prenatal opioid exposure, with publications. While my research is primarily driven by MRI technologies, the inclusion of PET is a natural result of the development of my research program, which is to validate the in vivo MRI signals with the pathophysiological signals detected by PET.

In addition to my research programs, I actively collaborate with internal and external scientists. I participate in many federally funded projects as a Co-investigator to support neuroimaging, image processing, and data analyses (see CV for more details). Many of these collaborative projects are multicenter in nature (e.g., the CARE consortium on SRC, the human connectome project on psychosis, and a clinical trial of the Memory Improvement through Nicotine Dosing Study, etc.). In these projects, I serve as the lead (or site’s lead) person in the imaging core and am responsible for developing and dispatching multimodal MRI protocols and conducting site visits.
Professional Organizations

Alzheimer's Association

International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM)

Radiological Society of North America (RSNA)
Board Certifications

American Board of Radiology - Medical Physics*

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