The research program led by David T. Jones, M.D., focuses on approaching neurodegenerative diseases that affect patients' perception, cognition and action from the perspective of large-scale brain systems most closely associated with those mental functions. This involves extensive use of advanced neuroimaging techniques and dense clinical phenotyping. He has proposed a complex systems model for cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathophysiology, the cascading network failure model, that integrates micro- and macroscale features of the disease.

Dr. Jones is also developing a global information processing model for mental functions that links neuroanatomy, cognitive neuroscience and clinical neurology. This model allows for the development of novel diagnostics and prognostic tools that inform neuromodulatory strategies for cognitive aging and treatment of neurogenerative diseases of perception, cognition and action. This work also informs his development of artificial intelligence (AI) strategies to improve the practice of neurology at Mayo Clinic and around the world.