Scientific Focus
Alzheimer’s Disease as well as vascular cognitive impairment are major health problems on our society. In fact, up to 80% of all dementia cases present themselves in a co-morbid manner with both AD and vascular cognitive impairment present in the patient. Hence, we are conducting basic research on the coocurrence of the two diseases to investigate underlying mechanisms and potential biomarkers. The neurovascular unit consist of multiple different cells that work in close coordination to regulates blood flow and blood brain barrier integrity and is of particular interest to us, as it is a common target in both diseases. We use a variety of methods to investigate disease related mechanisms on the genetic, functional and molecular level.
Methods
in vivo 2-Photon imaging, acute brain slice imaging, confocal microscopy, scRNA sequencing, primary cell culture, immunohistochemistry, molecular biology, protein biochemistry.
Selected Publications
Homeostatic and injury-induced microglia behavior in the aging brain. Hefendehl JK, Neher JJ, Sühs RB, Kohsaka S, Skodras A, and Jucker M. Aging Cell 2013 Aug 16; pp1–10
Comment on “ApoE-Directed Therapeutics Rapidly Clear b-Amyloid and Reverse Deficits in AD Mouse Models”. Veeraraghavalu K,* Zhang C,* Miller S,* Hefendehl JK,* Rajapaksha TW,* Ulrich J,* Jucker M, Holtzman DM, Tanzi RE , Vassar R, Sisodia SS. (shared first authorship). Science 2013 Jan 22 340, 924 (2013)
Long-term in vivo Imaging of β-Amyloid Plaque Appearance and Growth in a Mouse Model of Cerebral β-Amyloidosis. Hefendehl JK*, Wegenast-Braun BM*, Liebig C, Eicke D, Milford D, Calhoun ME, Eichner M, Jucker M.. J Neurosci. 2011 Jan 12;31(2):624-9.
Repeatable target localization for long-term in vivo imaging of mice with mulitphoton microscopy. J.K. Hefendehl, Milford D.K., Eicke D., Grathwohl S.A., Wegenast-Braun B.M., Calhoun M.E.,Jucker M., and Liebig C. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 205 (2011) 357-363.