James B. Brewer, MD, PhD

James Brewer, MD, PhD, is a board-certified neurologist who specializes in the early detection of Alzheimer's disease. He is a pioneer in developing neuroimaging approaches to analyze brain structure.

As chair and professor of neurosciences, Dr. Brewer trains medical students, residents and fellows and oversees one of the world's first and largest neurosciences programs. He also serves as director of the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at UC San Diego School of Medicine, where he is also a faculty member of the Department of Radiology.

Dr. Brewer has developed and applied advanced neuroimaging approaches for early detection of Alzheimer's in the clinical setting and also as a measure of the efficacy of new drugs under development.

He assisted in the design of studies that led to FDA and European regulatory clearance of a widely used tool for brain structure analysis that has been used to assess brain atrophy in over 80,000 patients.

Dr. Brewer completed his neurology residency at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. He earned his MD and PhD in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Stanford University School of Medicine.

UC San Diego Health Links
For more information, see Neurological Institute.