Introduction to the course
Translational neurosciences is about bringing research
discoveries to treatments or treatment strategies.
The purpose of this course is to prepare you to be able to come
up with treatment strategies yourself. Therefore, you’re
provided with different examples of translational research.
When following along these lectures, you should always start
from the question “how can we find a strategy to treat people
from this disease?” If you’re able to answer that question and
explain why they came up with that strategy, you should be
able to nail the exam.
Each lecture will cover:
Background about the disease/technology
o What it is
o Existing treatment, diagnosis
New strategies and future perspectives
, Normal Aging &
Neurodegeneration
Lecture by: Rose Bruffaerts
Disease/technology: neurodegeneration (ND)
Strategy: neurophysiology for diagnostics of ND
disease
We will first discuss how we can distinguish normal aging and
abnormal aging (neurodegeneration). We will see different
ND diseases, how they can be diagnosed and what the
limitations are of diagnosis (spoiler: in many cases, we are not
able to diagnose or we wish to diagnose earlier on because too
many neurons have already died which makes the disease very
difficult or impossible to treat). Finally, we will discuss the
potential of neurophysiology (mostly EEG) to diagnose ND
diseases.
Normal vs abnormal aging
Normal aging is characterized by a slight decline in memory
(working, episodic, semantic) over time. Language remains
more or less stable or even improves (vocabulary). Except,
retrieval in picture naming! This slows generally over age (‘tip
of the tongue phenomenon’). Executive functioning – as
already mentioned working memory for example – generally
declines over age, as also seen in the fact that elderly get more
easily distracted. It gets also more difficult over age to
discriminate different related sensory stimuli.
Besides these cognitive changes, we also see structural
changes in elderly: the brain gets
smaller in general due to loss of unused
,connections. Also, neurons decrease in size and lose branches.
Repair mechanisms also get less effective. In general, we see
that the sensorimotor cortex gets affected less and
hippocampus the most. This could have to do with the fact
that hippocampus asks the most energy (for LTP; storing new
memories), while sensorimotor cortex isn’t used that much
compared to other brain areas over lifetime. It is hard for the
brain to keep delivering sufficient energy for LTP. That’s possibly
why unused connections disappear. Lastly, axon myelination
reduces as well over age, slowing down brain functioning.
It's important to note that all of these changes are on average
and for some of these changes, error bars (variability) can be
very large, making it difficult to distinguish normal aging from
abnormal aging in early stage. E.g. see boxplots for memory
decline à
Abnormal aging or neurodegeneration (ND) is
characterized by severe, progressive loss of neurons,
influencing daily living, which is noticed by partner/friends. The
cognitive decline is usually not noticed by patient itself, due to
lack of insight (anosognosia). The cause of ND is the
underlying disease, top 4 given below:
1) Alzheimer’s disease (AD)
2) Vascular dementia (VD)
3) Lewy Body disease (LBD)
4) Frontotemporal degeneration (FTD)
Dementia = clinical presentation where the patient has severe
cognitive decline, losing their autonomy, infecting daily living. It
is one of the consequences ND can have when cognitive brain
areas are affected.
, Summary
Normal aging neurodegeneration
Slight memory decline Severe memory decline
Mild atrophy Severe atrophy in specific
regions dependent on disease
Slight impairment of executive
functioning Loss of autonomy
Hippocampus most effected
Slight reduction in axon
myelination
Interindividual
differences!!!
Alzheimer’s disease (AD)
In AD, the hippocampus is highly affected by
neurodegeneration
Memory storing affected
Remember that this differs from normal aging where it is just
the retrieval of memories that is an issue.
Although typically for AD is the affected memory, there are also
variants of AD that are less prevalent and thus atypical. In some
cases, vision, language or behaviour can be severely affected.
This is due to deposition of Aβ plaques and Tau in respective
brain regions.
Typically, though, it’s not only hippocampus that shows its
symptoms. The hippocampus is part of the default mode
network
Besides medial temporal lobe (hippocampus, entorhinal
cortex) also parietal lobe majorly gets affected, as well as the
Translational neurosciences is about bringing research
discoveries to treatments or treatment strategies.
The purpose of this course is to prepare you to be able to come
up with treatment strategies yourself. Therefore, you’re
provided with different examples of translational research.
When following along these lectures, you should always start
from the question “how can we find a strategy to treat people
from this disease?” If you’re able to answer that question and
explain why they came up with that strategy, you should be
able to nail the exam.
Each lecture will cover:
Background about the disease/technology
o What it is
o Existing treatment, diagnosis
New strategies and future perspectives
, Normal Aging &
Neurodegeneration
Lecture by: Rose Bruffaerts
Disease/technology: neurodegeneration (ND)
Strategy: neurophysiology for diagnostics of ND
disease
We will first discuss how we can distinguish normal aging and
abnormal aging (neurodegeneration). We will see different
ND diseases, how they can be diagnosed and what the
limitations are of diagnosis (spoiler: in many cases, we are not
able to diagnose or we wish to diagnose earlier on because too
many neurons have already died which makes the disease very
difficult or impossible to treat). Finally, we will discuss the
potential of neurophysiology (mostly EEG) to diagnose ND
diseases.
Normal vs abnormal aging
Normal aging is characterized by a slight decline in memory
(working, episodic, semantic) over time. Language remains
more or less stable or even improves (vocabulary). Except,
retrieval in picture naming! This slows generally over age (‘tip
of the tongue phenomenon’). Executive functioning – as
already mentioned working memory for example – generally
declines over age, as also seen in the fact that elderly get more
easily distracted. It gets also more difficult over age to
discriminate different related sensory stimuli.
Besides these cognitive changes, we also see structural
changes in elderly: the brain gets
smaller in general due to loss of unused
,connections. Also, neurons decrease in size and lose branches.
Repair mechanisms also get less effective. In general, we see
that the sensorimotor cortex gets affected less and
hippocampus the most. This could have to do with the fact
that hippocampus asks the most energy (for LTP; storing new
memories), while sensorimotor cortex isn’t used that much
compared to other brain areas over lifetime. It is hard for the
brain to keep delivering sufficient energy for LTP. That’s possibly
why unused connections disappear. Lastly, axon myelination
reduces as well over age, slowing down brain functioning.
It's important to note that all of these changes are on average
and for some of these changes, error bars (variability) can be
very large, making it difficult to distinguish normal aging from
abnormal aging in early stage. E.g. see boxplots for memory
decline à
Abnormal aging or neurodegeneration (ND) is
characterized by severe, progressive loss of neurons,
influencing daily living, which is noticed by partner/friends. The
cognitive decline is usually not noticed by patient itself, due to
lack of insight (anosognosia). The cause of ND is the
underlying disease, top 4 given below:
1) Alzheimer’s disease (AD)
2) Vascular dementia (VD)
3) Lewy Body disease (LBD)
4) Frontotemporal degeneration (FTD)
Dementia = clinical presentation where the patient has severe
cognitive decline, losing their autonomy, infecting daily living. It
is one of the consequences ND can have when cognitive brain
areas are affected.
, Summary
Normal aging neurodegeneration
Slight memory decline Severe memory decline
Mild atrophy Severe atrophy in specific
regions dependent on disease
Slight impairment of executive
functioning Loss of autonomy
Hippocampus most effected
Slight reduction in axon
myelination
Interindividual
differences!!!
Alzheimer’s disease (AD)
In AD, the hippocampus is highly affected by
neurodegeneration
Memory storing affected
Remember that this differs from normal aging where it is just
the retrieval of memories that is an issue.
Although typically for AD is the affected memory, there are also
variants of AD that are less prevalent and thus atypical. In some
cases, vision, language or behaviour can be severely affected.
This is due to deposition of Aβ plaques and Tau in respective
brain regions.
Typically, though, it’s not only hippocampus that shows its
symptoms. The hippocampus is part of the default mode
network
Besides medial temporal lobe (hippocampus, entorhinal
cortex) also parietal lobe majorly gets affected, as well as the
