Research Projects

The Hope” solution consists of an integrated, smart platform that enables the elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease to use innovative technology for a more independent life, easy access to information, monitor their health, which provides a basis for integrating services for the elderly population while they are at home.  HOPE is a self-operated...

Different from the familial forms, late onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) is not the consequence of a single cause: neither aging, nor genetic polymorphisms nor an environmental disturbance do, per se, suffice to produce this disease. It is currently thought that instead disease is the consequence of an interaction of all the above circumstances...

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) in elderly individuals with still normal cognitive performance is considered an at-risk condition of Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia and may reflect its first symptomatic manifestation. This makes SCD a promising target for dementia prevention trials. This project aims at creating a transnational, harmonized...

2D-BioPAD is a cost-effective, non-invasive point of care/self-testing tool for the early and accurate prognosis (assistive diagnosis) of Alzheimer's Disease, with special focus on earlier stages such as Subjective or Mild Cognitive Impairment (SCI/MCI).

As Europe’s population is ageing, long-term care for elderly citizens will become an increasing cost for society. To manage this transition healthcare policies in the EU and individual Member States are heavily focussed on extending the independent life of the elderly, with the dual aim of increasing their quality of life and reducing the costs of...

Disrupted neuronal connectivity and synapse dysfunction can manifest clinically as a range of emotional, behavioural and cognitive symptoms that are common to, and often overlapping in, mental disorders (MDs) such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disorders (NDs) such as Alzheimers disease and...

Recent Nobel Prize-winning discoveries on circadian clock (CC) have laid the foundation for ground-breaking approaches to treat many diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). AD is a current public health priority. Amplifying the demographic burden of the rising numbers of patients is the low success rate of AD therapies. Given that CC genes...

We aim to elucidate the exact role of epigenetic dysregulation in the brainstem in the pathogenesis of AD. For this purpose, we will examine post-mortem brainstem tissue derived from AD patients, and matched controls, for epigenetic differences. By investigating AD-specific epigenetic profiles in the blood of individuals suffering from Mild...

The proposed project aims to investigate the contribution of thalamocortical projections to high cognitive functions such as speechprocessing, working memory and attention in sighted and unsighted populations. In the last decades, advances made in magneticresonance imaging (MRI) have shed light on the cortical regions subserving these processes...

The overall aim of the planned research is to test whether pro-aging and pro-youthful blood factors are associated with cognitive performance and neuroimaging outcomes in normal ageing and in individuals at risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and whether this association is modified by lifestyle habits (e.g. exercise or diet) or genetic factors...

Several studies have shown that ischemic stroke, a result of an occluded vessel in the brain, could be followed by cognitive decline and, after several strokes, lead to dementia, similar to Alzheimer’s disease but with a different clinical presentation, especially in the beginning. We believe that there is cross-talk between vessel occlusion and...

Noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus (LC) mediate attention, memory, and arousal. Based on previous data, we suggest that LC degeneration is a new common mechanism in the early onset and/or progression of neurodegeneration and dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Down syndrome (DS) and Parkinson's disease (PD). The goal of our project is...