Research Projects

Everybody grows old. But while some people grow old in good health, others experience severe disease, such as Alzheimer's disease. Recent research demonstrates that Alzheimer's disease shares several features with the ageing process and suggests that the pathology is the consequence of something that goes wrong during physiological ageing...

Beta-amyloid (β-amyloid) deposition is considered to be a necessary - but not sufficient - step on the path towards Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Depiction of brain β-amyloid in vivo can support an early diagnosis, and even provide an opportunity for consider secondary prevention of AD. Currently, however, the value of β-amyloid PET remains elusive...

In addition to impairments in episodic and spatial memory, a lack of awareness for one’s memory deficits (also referred to as anosognosia) may be considered a crucial cognitive marker of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). However, although a growing body of interesting models have been proposed to explain this early symptom, what is still missing is a...

The study of protein aggregates and how they damage neuronal cells is important in order to understand the initiation and progression of several neurodegenerative diseases - including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD). The aggregation from the native monomeric proteins to beta sheet containing amyloid structures involves the...

Cognitive and mental disorders such as Dementia, Alzheimer´s, depression and Parkinson's disease, some of them closely related to ageing populations, have high social and economic burden. Nowadays, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, gerontologists and general practitioners rely on subjective, time-consuming semi-structured interviews and...

As part of the Innovation policy of Andalusian Region, Fundación Descubre (www.fundaciondescubre.es) with the University of Almeria, University of Cordoba, University of Granada, University of Huelva, University of Malaga, Pablo de Olavide University, University of Seville, Jaen University and National Research Council (CSIC), the Association of...

Supramolecular polymers are of major interest in the field of self assembly with a promising outlook in areas of viscosity modification, compartmentalized architectures, bio-conjugates and drug-delivery applications. They are dynamic macromolecular materials prepared by simple mixing of relatively small components bearing complementary or self...

NeuroPsyCAD is a cloud-based reporting service that provides an accurate and early diagnosis of neuropsychiatric disorders. To achieve high accuracies, NeuroPsyCAD statistically compares a brain scan of a patient with a normative, human, and population representative database using machine-learning algorithms. It also analyses the brain as a whole...

Glaucoma is the world's leading cause of irreverisble blindness, affecting 20 million people in Europe and the US. Known as the Alzheimer’s of the eye, glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disorder that causes deterioration in peripheral vision. Affected patients report ‘seeing through a black tunnel’. Treatments to halt vision loss are available...

I am a stem cell biologist specialized on modeling human neurodegenerative diseases. During my PhD with Dr. O. Brüstle (University of Bonn), I was trained in human stem cell and reprogramming technologies working on human models for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). As a postdoc at the Salk Institute with Dr. F. H. Gage, I acquired and strong foundation in...

Air pollution (AP) remains prevalent globally. Its impact on dementia risk is unclear. We propose to investigate the association of dementia with AP and explore mediation effects on the association from other factors. We will examine data of 2776 participants aged >=60 years who were randomly recruited from urban and rural of China. Their baseline...

In dementia at the end of life, cognitive and physical decline imply that control is typically lost. CONT-END will examine control in the context of three emerging interventions which contain a controversial element of striving for control in the process of dying with dementia: advance care planning of the end of life, use of new technology to...