Research Projects

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...

ADAM10 (A Disintegrin and Metalloprotease 10), the main α-secretase of the non-amyloidogenic cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP), is a common player in Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and Alzheimer´s disease (AD). ADAM10 levels are altered in platelets, plasma, serum, and CSF of elderly with AD, suggesting its potential role as an AD biomarker...

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...

Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia (60-80% of cases) with a prevalence near 50 million people. There is no cure available and there are only two classes of approved drugs that are effective in treat some of the cognitive symptoms and potentially delay the clinical decline. Despite the considerable progress achieved in the...

This project aims to investigate the early associations between cardiovascular health and Alzheimers disease (AD) pathology, with a focus on subclinical atherosclerosis (SCAth) and cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs), in a large cohort of asymptomatic, middle-aged individuals. The overarching objective is to determine how cardiovascular health in...

The calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) is a class C Gprotein-coupled receptor that plays a pivotal role in systemic calcium metabolism by regulating parathyroid hormone secretion and urinary Ca excretion. Abnormal CaSR function is implicated in calciotropic disorders, and in non-calciotropic disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), cardiovascular...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly. Accumulating evidence links AD with vascular risk factors. These correlations, together with profound alterations of cerebrovascular structure and function present in AD, suggest a “vascular hypothesis”, where vascular pathology eventually leads to neurodegeneration and...

One of the main socioeconomics challenges to be faced in the next decades will be the prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s) due to population ageing. Today, diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of such illness is complex, a laborious process completed by a limited set of Neurologist experts who need to...

Older adults show difficulties with bilingual language processing and switching compared to younger adults. For example, they need more time to switch between languages and show more cross-language intrusions. Language problems have not only been found for healthy older adults, but also in patients with dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Language...

The cDAC ERC Advanced project develops and validates a theory of consciousness and its application to the understanding and alleviation of its deficits. cDAC proposes that consciousness is a virtualization memory system that monitors and optimizes the real-time control of perception, cognition and action realized in a multi-layered architecture...

The COVID pandemic can be seen as an experiment done with the entirety of humankind (as almost everybody has been or will get infected with SARS-CoV-2). It will therefore have the best coverage over the widest variation possible and is therefore ideally suited to study the effects of infections with SARS-CoV-2 on large quantities of heterogeneous...