J. Wesson Ashford, M.D., Ph.D.  -  Curriculum Vitae Synopsis  -  April 29, 2002

Dr. Ashford graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1970 and attended UCLA between 1970 and 1985, attaining an M.D. degree in 1974 and a Ph.D. in 1984. In 1975, his Ph.D. written qualifying exam was the only exam ever singled out by the committee for a special letter of commendation. Dr. Ashford trained in psychiatry between 1975 and 1979, during which time he was a founding member of the UCLA Neurobehavior Clinic and the first Chief Resident on the UCLA Geriatric Psychiatry In-Patient Unit, and he was associate director of that unit between 1979 and 1980. During his residency, he published the first study using MAO-inhibitors to treat depression in the elderly (Ashford et al., 1979) and the first telemetry-confirmed case of a violent automatism in an epileptic patient (Ashford et al., 1980). He also conducted the first double-blind study of an anti-cholinesterase drug (physostigmine) to treat Alzheimer patients (Ashford et al., 1981), a therapy which is now standard treatment for Alzheimer patients.

Between 1980 and 1985, Dr. Ashford was the director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Out-patient at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, which became the largest specialty clinic in the UCLA/NPI out-patient clinic system under his direction. During that time, he worked with Dr. Dr. David Kuhl to initiate the UCLA/Alzheimer PET scan study (NIH funded 4/84, $2 million), for which he became clinical director.When Dr. Ashford left UCLA in 6/85, he turned his role over to Dr. Gary Small, and numerous publications and awards have resulted from this project.

Between 1979 and 1984, Dr. Ashford worked on his Ph.D. dissertation in the laboratory of Dr. Joaquin Fuster (author of The Prefrontal Cortex). His Ph.D. dissertation was a finalist for the Lindsley Prize, for the best dissertation in Behavioral Neuroscience, in 1984. The collaboration with Dr. Fuster led to several publications, including the first proposal and physiologic demonstration of massive parallel information processing in the brain (Ashford et al., 1985); this work and its implications for memory function was recently summarized (chapter by Ashford, Coburn, and Fuster, 1998). As a result of his leading work in both Alzheimer’s disease and neurophysiology, Dr. Ashford made the water-shed observation that neuro-plastic memory mechanisms of the brain are specifically affected by Alzheimer pathology (Ashford and Jarvik, 1985, see chapter, Ashford, Mattson, & Schmitt, 1998).

Dr. Ashford was an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine between 1985 and 1990, where he helped to establish an NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center and developed a primate model of Alzheimer’s disease (see chapter by Ashford, Coburn, and Fuster, 1998). He published the first study of “Item-Response Theory” analysis of the Mini-Mental State Exam (Ashford et al., 1989).

Dr. Ashford was an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Davis during 1991 and 1992, based at the Martinez, VAMC, working there as the Chief of the Mental Hygiene Clinic. His work in that clinic led to the first study showing that trazodone benefited combat veterans with PTSD (Ashford and Miller, 1996). Dr. Ashford also helped to bring an NIA Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center to UC, Davis during that time.

Dr. Ashford moved to the University of Kentucky and the Lexington, VAMC in December, 1992, as an Associate Professor in Psychiatry, Neurology, and the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, and Vice-Chair for research in the Department of Psychiatry. He became a tenured Associate Professor in 1995. He moved to Kentucky specifically to continue his research on Alzheimer’s disease. At UK, Dr. Ashford has worked closely with the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, directed by Dr. William Markesbery. In this capacity, he has been involved in several drug-treatment studies of Alzheimer’s disease, including the UC San Diego based Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study group, locally directed by Dr. Fred Schmitt. He also directs the VAMC Memory Disorders Clinic.

At UK, Dr. Ashford’s most important contribution has been the proposal of a “Time-Index” method to measure Alzheimer dementia severity (Ashford et al., 1995; Mendiondo et al., 2000; Ashford & Schmitt, 2001), an extension of his widely cited paper which applied “Item Response Theory” to understanding the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. This concept has been applied to a defined population in the UK Nun study, directed by Dr. David Snowden (Butler. 1996), and most recently to the measurement of loss of cerebral perfusion (Ashford et al., 2000).  He has organized a symposium on the subject of dementia severity measurement with Dr. Murray Raskind for the 2003 meeting of the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry.

At UK, Dr. Ashford has continued to search for a means to successfully treat Alzheimer’s disease.  Looking to basic mechanisms for clues to treatment, he published several papers with Drs. Mark Mattson and James Geddes.  With Dr. Mattson, he extended work with cell culture begun at SIU (Brewer and Ashford, 1992), to find substances that could protect neurons against Alzheimer pathology (for review, see chapter Ashford, Mattson, Kumar 1998).  In a study with Dr. Geddes (Ashford et al., 1998), the crucial role of paired helical filament pathology for destroying neuronal processes and inducing dementia was shown in a double-staining technique.  This insight led to a current project, studying a tau-phosphorylation inhibitor (lithium) to treat Alzheimer patients, to stop disease progression.

Dr. Ashford is currently working with approaches to early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. He coordinated a session at the 2001 meeting of the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry on genetic factors in Alzheimer’s disease.  He organized symposium on Alzheimer screening for both the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry and the American Psychiatric Association meetings in 2003.  His future direction is to continue developing early detection and measurement of dementia severity in Alzheimer’s disease, with the goal of finding treatments and prevention for this disease.

From  July, 2000 to September, 2001, Dr. Ashford was the acting chief of the Mental Health Service at the Lexington VAMC, which included supervision of a large outpatient and consultation program and an in-patient unit.  He continues to direct the VAMC Memory Disorders Clinic and consults at two nursing homes.