Early detection of neuroinflammation

Understanding the early stages of Alzheimer's disease is important for detecting the disease earlier and for finding effective treatments that can slow or even stop disease progression. Before the presence of plaques and neuronal loss in patient brains, subtle changes are taking place in normal, homeostatic processes, including neuroinflammation.

We examine alterations in microglia in the early stage of Alzheimer's disease. Our aim is to define the very first signs of neuroinflammation and to discover novel potential therapeutic targets. In addition, we investigate the interactions between neurons and microglia, before the development of extensive plaque pathology. To these ends, we use different mouse models of Alzheimer's disease together with models lacking specific inflammatory proteins.