Alzheimer’s disease

One person is diagnosed with dementia every three minutes, with over 60% having Alzheimer’s disease. Initial forgetfulness and confusion in the early stages can progress to everyday tasks such as eating, communicating or dressing being impossible. It strips away the memories and personality of those diagnosed. We research the underlying causes, including genetics and environmental factors, to determine why only some people are affected. We also research the mechanisms that lead to disease to discover/isolate events at the cellular level that cause Alzheimer's disease. Pre-symptomatic changes may hold the answer for providing a window to intervene and stop this disease before it takes a hold.

Our real goal is to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, so we work together to investigate all aspects, from the underlying genes through to contributions of glial cells. Glial cells, once identified as just the ‘glue’ holding neurons together are an exciting area of research. We investigate how these support cells are key players in brain structure and function.

Our key questions:

• How do we identify the disease before symptom onset, and how do we reliably measure disease progression?
• How do the two major pathologies, protein tau and amyloid beta, cause loss of neurons and their connections?
• What are the changes in signalling in Alzheimer's disease and how does it contribute to disease progression?
• Which factors modulate the cellular and molecular mechanisms of synapse weakening?
• How does Alzheimer’s disease alter neurogenesis (creation of new neurons)? Can this be used to measure disease progression?

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