The basal ganglia are a remarkably complicated and interconnected tangle of subcortical nuclei whose exact function and composition are hotly debated to this day. What is plainly obvious, however, is that loss of dopaminergic modulation in the basal ganglia, as is the case in Parkinson’s disease (PD) following the progressive...
Mitochondria-lysosome contacts are recently identified sites for mediating crosstalk between both organelles, but their role in normal and diseased human neurons remains unknown. We used super-resolution and live-cell microscopy in human iPSC-derived neurons to demonstrate that mitochondria-lysosome contacts can dynamically form in the soma, axons, and dendrites of human neurons,...
To survive, animals, including human beings, have developed an amazing ability to learn the constantly changing environment. Specifically, detecting specific odorants in a noisy, variable background is crucial for finding food and water, mating, and avoiding potential dangers. For this purpose, rodents have developed an olfactory system that is powerful...
Approximately 80-90% of individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) develop motor speech impairments, predominantly in the form of voice dysfunction. It is known that the motor symptoms of PD arise from degeneration of the dopamine producing neurons in the substantia nigra and dysregulation of basal ganglia motor pathways. It is also...
Voltage-gated potassium (KV) currents play a crucial role in shaping and controlling the firing patterns that serve as the fundamental basis for the differential signal processing from the ear to the auditory cortex, with distinct firing patterns observed with high- and low-frequency phenotypes. This is an interesting phenomenon, in the...
Background: The way in which one perceives their visual world (i.e., bottom-up visual perception) and what one pays attention to in their surroundings (i.e., top-down attention), are critical to uncovering underlying thoughts and cognitions, and impact how one operates in the social world. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a...
The mammalian retina contains three classes of photoreceptors: rods, cones and the recently discovered intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs). ipRGCs express the photopigment melanopsin and were initially thought to be a homogeneous population of cells that drive subconscious visual behaviors such as circadian photoentrainment and pupil constriction. However, recent...
The presence of subjective cognitive decline (SCD) among cognitively normal-for-age older adults is increasingly hypothesized to represent a preclinical stage in the development of Alzheimer’s dementia (Jessen et al., 2014). This project aimed to characterize this construct with regard to its cognitive, motor, emotional, and functional features. The first study...
A one-time, unilateral injury to the developing brain can interrupt the typical process of development and result in motor impairments that evolve over the course of the whole life-span. The timing of injury relative to neural development has implications for the continued refinement of the nervous system and the descending...
Compromised protein homeostasis underlies accumulation of plaques and tangles in Alzheimer’s disease (AD); however, little is known about the early mechanisms that contribute to this process. To objectively assess protein turnover at early stages of amyloid beta (Aβ) proteotoxicity, we used dynamic metabolic labeling with stable isotopes followed by proteomic...