Led by Dr Edina Silajdžić
Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is important for learning and memory and is altered early in Alzheimer’s disease.
We developed a unique assay to model the impact of the systemic environment on hippocampal neurogenesis in vitro, and subsequently used it to analyse serum samples of individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to predict progression to clinical Alzheimer’s disease.
A subset of ‘baseline’ cellular readouts together with education level were able to predict MCI to Alzheimer’s disease progression with high sensitivity and specificity. The aim of the current project is to validate the in vitro neurogenesis assay in larger, independent cohorts, to investigate the robustness and precision of the assay and to increase throughput using automation.
The in vitro neurogenesis assay will also be used to explore the molecular and cellular mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis.
Thuret Lab 