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Our Work

We study the entorhinal-hippocampal functions related to memory, navigation, and imagination in both health and disease. Our primary focus is on three main areas outlined below.

Understanding behavioural and neural signatures of early Alzheimer’s pathology in mouse models and humans

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Path-integration was proposed to present one of the earliest cognitive deficits observed in Alzheimer’s disease. We use early Tau, amyloid and their cross models to unravel how they may affect hippocampal-entorhinal neural circuitry leading to these cognitive impairments. In particular, we are interested in identifying specific neural and neural-network vulnerabilities associated with early stages of these pathologies.

We are keen to translate our observations in mouse models to benefit research in humans. For example, we developed analogous mobile-device-based cognitive/behavioural testing pipeline for humans which is fully unsupervised and aims to specifically test entorhinal/hippocampal function. This has a potential to increase specificity and sensitivity, and to improve scalability and standardization to facilitate early detection and monitoring of AD.

Studying interaction between brain (circadian) clocks and spatial cognitive maps

Circadian processes (including sleep) have a profound effect on numerous neurophysiological functions including memory and cognition. Disruptions in sleep patterns together with hippocampal/entorhinal cognitive functions are one of the earliest behavioural impairments observed in Alzheimer’s disease. We use long-term high-throughput neural recordings in smart-Kages to investigate how deep brain regions crucial for sleep and hippocampal/entorhinal regions interact in supporting complex naturalistic behaviours (including working and long-term memory) in health and disease.

Studying neural circuits underpinning imagination

The hippocampus was shown to be crucial for imagining coherent scenes in humans. We develop and use the hippocampal/entorhinal brain machine interface to study how direct neural activity readout can drive navigation.

Get in touch

Dementia Research Institute, University College London,

Cruciform Building, Gower St, London WC1E 6BT, UK

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