Humberto Mestre is Lead Author on Study "Brain 'Drowns' in Its Own Fluid after a Stroke"
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Cerebral edema, swelling that occurs in the brain, is a severe and potentially fatal complication of stroke. New research, which was conducted in mice and appears in the journal Science, shows for the first time that the glymphatic system – normally associated with the beneficial task of waste removal – goes awry during a stroke and floods the brain, triggering edema and drowning brain cells.
“When you force every single cell, which is essentially a battery, to release its charge it represents the single largest disruption of brain function you can achieve – you basically discharge the entire brain surface in one fell swoop,” said Humberto Mestre, M.D., a Ph.D. student in the Nedergaard lab and lead author of the study. “The double hit of the spreading depolarization and the ischemia makes the blood vessels cramp, resulting in a level of constriction that is completely abnormal and creating conditions for CSF to rapidly flow into the brain.”
Read More: Humberto Mestre is Lead Author on Study "Brain 'Drowns' in Its Own Fluid after a Stroke"Suzanne Haber Honored by Society of Biological Psychiatry for Research on Mental Disorders
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Suzanne N. Haber, Ph.D., Dean’s Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, will receive the Society of Biological Psychiatry’s 2020 Gold Medal Award at the Society’s 75th Annual Scientific Convention & Meeting in the spring. The award honors members of the Society whose significant and sustained work has advanced and extended knowledge on the neurobiology of mental illness.
Haber’s lab investigates the cortico-cortical and cortico-basal ganglia systems in the brain. Her work demonstrates the specific hard-wired connections that are associated with normal decision making, emotional and cognitive control, and the connectional abnormalities in those circuits that are linked to a wide range of mental health disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), drug abuse and addiction, schizophrenia, and motor control disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. This work has played a key role in targeting and interpreting the effects of noninvasive and invasive therapeutic approaches for OCD and depression.
For the past ten years, Haber has led the Silvio O. Conte Center for Basic and Translational Mental Health Research at the University of Rochester. Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Center uses translational approaches to probe the neurocircuitry that underlies neuromodulation for OCD, pinpointing specific abnormalities within the brain circuits that are associated with the disease. This information is being used to guide new treatment options for the three million-plus Americans who live with the disorder.
“Suzanne’s seminal contributions to elucidating specific neural networks that control learning, decision-making, reward and motivation, and how pathologies associated with these neural communication hubs underlie multiple neurological, movement, and mental health disorders make her uniquely qualified to receive this prestigious career award,” said Robert T. Dirksen, Ph.D., Lewis Pratt Ross Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology. “Her work is making a difference in the lives of individuals and families suffering from neurological and mental health disorders. We are extremely proud that she represents the University of Rochester as a Society of Biological Psychiatry Gold Medal Award winner.”
The Society of Biological Psychiatry was founded in 1945 to emphasize the medical and scientific study and treatment of mental disorders. It’s the oldest neuropsychiatry research society in America, currently made up of more than 1,500 members from across the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Members conduct research in areas spanning from basic cellular studies to clinical trials and prevention research.
Haber, who is also a professor of Neuroscience, Brain and Cognitive Science, and Psychiatry, will split the 2020 Gold Medal Award with Carol Tamminga, M.D. of UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Two NGP Students First Author Nature Paper on Alzheimer's Disease
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Udaysankar Chockanathan and Emily J. Warner are the lead authors on the paper, "Altered dorsal CA1 neuronal population coding in the APP/PS1 mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease" published in the journal Nature.
Abstract: While the link between amyloid β (Aβ) accumulation and synaptic degradation in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is known, the consequences of this pathology on population coding remain unknown. We found that the entropy, a measure of the diversity of network firing patterns, was lower in the dorsal CA1 region in the APP/PS1 mouse model of Aβ pathology, relative to controls, thereby reducing the population’s coding capacity. Our results reveal a network level signature of the deficits Aβ accumulation causes to the computations performed by neural circuits.
Excellent work Uday and Emily!
Read More: Two NGP Students First Author Nature Paper on Alzheimer's Disease