Research Projects

Postoperative delirium (POD) is characterized by the progressive deterioration of sensory/cognitive function after surgery with incidences of up to 30-80%. It is frequently followed by postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) which tends to persist over time. In elderly patients, POCD resembles chronic dementia and appears to accelerate the...

Neurodegenerative disorders, represented mostly by Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), are characterised by progressive neuronal impairment and death. In spite of the brain's known capacity for regeneration, lost neurons generally cannot be replaced. Therefore, drugs aimed at inhibiting neurodegenerative processes are likely to...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affects more than 7 million people in Europe and this figure is expected to double every 20 years. Despite intensive efforts, no disease-modifying treatments or preventive strategies are available. The lack of specific, sensitive and minimally invasive diagnostics to identify people with early-stage AD to be included in...

Dementia is a group of disorders characterized by severe memory loss ultimately impairing daily life activities. Major forms are Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia, and frontotemporal dementia. Each dementia type is caused by different biological factors and therefore requires a specific treatment targeting these factors. To develop effective...

The brain barriers function to protect the central nervous system (CNS) from neurotoxic compounds. By the same traits they unfortunately block delivery of drugs to the CNS thus hindering proper diagnosis and effective treatment of neurological disorders including Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis. The unusual complexity of the brain...

In this project, D. Salas-Gonzalez proposes to develop brain image processing with alpha-stable distributions with applications to intensity normalization, segmentation and diagnosis of Parkinsonian syndrome and Alzheimer's disease. The expected results of this interdisciplinary project will definitely have applications and impact in the European...

Establishing efficient prevention strategies for dementia and Alzheimer's disease is a major health priority. Since the cascade of events leading to Alzheimer's disease begins many years before the disease is detected, efficient prevention should be initiated early.

This requires identifying individuals in the general population who are at high...

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia which seriously interferes with the daily life of millions of people. People suffering from Alzheimer’s disease show the accumulation of two misfolded proteins in the nerve cells of their brains – amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Although many aspects of the Alzheimer’s disease pattern are...

Today, five out of ten diseases worldwide resulting in long-term disability are related to the central nervous system. Due to the immense complexity and inter-individual variability of the human mind and brain there are still no effective and side effect free treatment options for many serious neuropsychiatric disorders, such as major depression...

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are fatal neurodegenerative diseases with overlapping genetics and pathology. The most common known cause is expansion of a GGGGCC repeat in the first intron of the gene C9orf72. I discovered that the repeat region is translated in all three reading frames into aggregating...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a major contributor to disease burden and healthcare costs worldwide. AD is usually diagnosed once symptoms like memory impairment become evident. However, at this point typical AD pathology such as Aβ plaques and cell death is already widespread, suggesting that molecular changes have occurred decades before symptom...

The search for the fundamental mechanisms of learning and experience-dependent memory formation in the brain has long been a central quest in neuroscience. The neocortex is a particularly relevant region for plasticity because it is involved in sensory, motor, and cognitive tasks with strong learning components. However, despite many years of...