Research Projects

Nocturne specializes in products and services that allow diagnosing neurologic disorders through imaging of the eye. Nocturne’s proprietary technology (patent pending) analyses 3D images of the retina, which are obtained by optical coherence tomography (OCT). OCT is a noninvasive imaging technology routinely used in ophthalmology. Standard OCT...

Demographic analyses predict that one third of the 10 millions Belgian population in 2050 will be above 60 years of age. Since aging is the major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), this increase in the proportion of seniors is closely linked to the increased prevalence of AD. With the advent of promising symptomatic treatment, it is critical...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterised by a gradual cognitive decline, which initially affects learning and memory, and gradually impairs other cognitive functions. Despite considerable scientific effort, the cause and pathogenesis of AD is still unknown. Recent in vitro studies suggest that the destruction of synapses by soluble aggregates of...

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...

Recent years have seen a rapid increase in available information. This has created an urgent need for fast statistical and machine learning methods that can scale up to big data sets. Standard approaches, including the now routinely used Bayesian methods, are becoming computationally infeasible, especially in complex models with many parameters and...

The brain is nowadays the object of a number of extensive systematic studies that focus on seemingly all aspects of its morphology and function, from overall brain architecture to neuronal connections, neuronal morphology and gene expression. However, at least one basic aspect is as yet incompletely studied: the molecular anatomy of the neuron, i.e...

Remembering where things are, for example, where you parked your car, is essential in everyday life. Without spatial memory, we would continuously be engaged in looking for our car, keys, phone, or glasses. Despite its obvious importance, a lot is still unknown about object location memory (OLM). This proposal aims to uncover mechanisms underlying...

Since its discovery more than a decade ago, the most studied network in the human brain remains a paradox. The default mode network (DMN) is most active during the resting state and deactivates once subjects engage in goal directed behavior. Although reported in hundreds of studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the function of...

Alzheimer’s (AD) is a global epidemic with 50 M people suffering it and 76 M expected by 2030 (related costs near $1 Tri in 2018). To diminish its burden, an early detection is crucial, specially when modifying treatments become available. The most accurate method to measure AD hallmarks is positron emission tomography (PET), but current PET...

Neurodegenerative diseases share similar hallmarks such as protein aggregation, suggesting that impaired protein degradation may be a common denominator. The major cellular pathways mediating protein degradation are the Ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) and autophagy, both regulated by ubiquitin signaling. However, aside from specific mutations in...

Existing pharmaceutical methods can only target 15% of all proteins in the human proteome. Given this limitation, pharmaceutical companies are running out of options to develop effective drugs to tackle hard-to-treat diseases. To have a better chance of fighting these diseases, further targets of the remaining, so far undruggable 85% of our...