Research

Area 4

Neurodegenerative diseases: Clinical and experimental research

Team leader

Strategic objectives

  1. Development of research projects, with results that may find short term application, with a view to improving the diagnosis and treatment of degenerative neurological diseases. Many of the research lines are linked to clinical research protocols of the Clinic Hospital Department of Neurology.
  2. Investigation of the molecular mechanisms implicated in dopaminergic neuron degeneration and in the physiopathology of the motor complications induced by drug treatment, in experimental models of Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders.

Main lines of research

  1. Genetic analyses, biological markers and experimental therapies in Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. Genetic and expression studies in parkinsonisms.
  2. Studies in in vivo and in vitro experimental modelsof the physiopathological mechanisms involved in Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders.
  3. Genetic and diagnostic and predictive marker studies in Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Experimental functional neuroimaging studies in healthy and in pathological aging.
  4. Study of the biological and molecular bases of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease in preclinical stages: mild cognitive impairment and pre-motor Parkinson’s disease.
  5. Study of neurogenesis in the subventricular zone, olfactory bulb and striate nucleus in experimental models of Parkinson’s disease and tardive dyskinesia.

Grups

Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders (Associated)

TOLOSA, EDUARDO

(ICN)

We have consolidated the line of genetics in degenerative disorders, particularly Parkinson’s disease. This year we have explored or published different studies on genetic brain expression of genes potentially implicated in progressive supranuclear paralysis (isoforms of tau, CRHR1, IMP5, cdk5, GSK3 and saitohin). In addition, we have determined the frequency of the most common mutations of the LRRK2 gene in patients with Parkinson’s disease seen in our Department, and in cases of parkinsonism in the Neurological Tissue Bank.