Neurosciences

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Overview

The Neuroscience area is consolidating its position as one of the largest clusters of research labs working on neurological diseases across Europe. At present, the area comprises 14 groups with more than one hundred fully dedicated researchers in close contact with top clinicians in the hospital. These research groups pursue a better and multifaceted understanding of the etiopathogenic mechanisms underlying a large variety of mostly adult but also pediatric neurological disorders including stroke, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, primary headaches, epilepsy, neuromuscular disorders, and also neurosurgical and psychiatric pathologies. The area also integrates groups involved in neuroimaging, analysis and interpretation of high-throughput data, and gene therapy strategies to target inflammatory and neurodegenerative neurological conditions.

Publications

276
total
1952
impact factor
7.07
average impact factor

Group Leader: Joan X. Comella Carnicé

Our work is mainly focused in the characterization of the physiological roles of the death receptor antagonist, FAIM-L. We have evidenced its interaction in neurons with other proteins, XIAP and Siva-1, confirming that FAIM-L is involved in neuronal plasticity processes, such as pruning and long term depression, through stabilization of XIAP and interaction with Siva, thus modulating caspases activity. These results, added to the previous finding that FAIM-L controls neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease models by modulating TNF effects, allows positioning FAIM-L as an interesting target for the treatment of the disease. We have also completed the characterization of the in vivo faim knockout model. As ongoing projects, we are investigating the role of FAIM-L in other pathological situations, such as diabetic retinopathy, in collaboration with other VHIR groups, and developing tools to characterize FAIM-L expression and modulate its levels in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease.

 

VHIR Annual Report 2019