Heiko Braak

Heiko Braak (born 16 June 1937) is a German anatomist at the Clinical Neuroanatomy Section, Department of Neurology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Ulm, Germany. He has received awards for his work on Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson’s disease. Braak and his colleagues described disease progression in terms of six different stages, each involving abnormal pathology in particular neurological structures. The type and severity of symptoms is correlated to progression through the Braak stages. and later married Kelly Del Tredici.

Research Braak's early research focused on the morphology of the central nervous system of chondrichthyan fishes. In the holocephalan species Chimaera monstrosa (ratfish), he described, in the basal midline of the diencephalon, a previously unknown ependymall structure adjacent to the rostral part of the optic chiasma referred to as the ‘organon vasculare praeopticum’. It may be considered homologous to the supraoptic crest of mammals. Braak also described the morphology of the neurohypophysial complex of the squaliform elasmobranch Etmopterus spinax (Spinax niger).

Braak’s further research has focused on the morphology and pathoanatomy of the human central nervous system, in particular of the cerebral cortex (1980).

Braak has contributed extensively to the neuropathology of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. In particular, he and his wife Eva Braak introduced a classification of Alzheimer's disease into six distinct pathoanatomical stages, now commonly referred to as Braak and Braak stages, based on the topographical distribution pattern of neurofibrillary changes from circumscribed parts of the limbic system to the higher neocortical association fields. A similar classification was proposed in 2003 for the pathoanatomical changes associated with idiopathic Parkinson's disease.

Braak and his wife, Eva Braak, were the first to describe the pathological changes of argyrophilic grain disease, a previously unknown form of senile dementia.

Selected publications

Awards 2014, Robert A. Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson’s Research, The Michael J. Fox Foundation 2017, Hartwig Piepenbrock-DZNE Prize, The Piepenbrock Group and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE)