- Delivering a fully validated cognitive assessment platform with identical, touchscreen-based cognitive tests for mice, marmosets and humans
- Medium to long-term impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection including variants of concern on cognition in mice, marmosets and humans using parallel touchscreen-based cognitive tests of executive function and pattern separation
- Medium to long-term impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection including variants of concern on brain chemistry in mouse and marmoset models, using fibre photometry and biosensors (e.g., dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, acetylcholine, calcium signalling, ATP)
- Monitoring of disease diagnosis and progression using advanced, high-resolution brain imaging and precision cognition as biomarkers
- Acceleration of neurodegenerative disease via viral triggers using humanized transgenic and knock-in mouse models (Alzheimer’s disease: ApoE3, ApoE4, APP, tau; ALS: TDP-43; Parkinson’s disease: M83 + alpha synuclein fibrils)
Brain Health
Conquering the cognitive impact of infectious disease.
The Brain Health team has jointly developed an innovative open access platform for knowledge-based drug evaluation, MouseTRAP+, that can be used for high-throughput testing of therapeutic strategies in mouse and marmoset models of disease with a lens on linking molecular, cellular and circuit function to cognitive impact. They have extensive expertise in creating humanized mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases (Vania Prado, Marco Prado), cognitive assessment using computerized test batteries in mice (Lisa Saksida, Tim Bussey, Prado, Prado), cognitive assessment using computerized test batteries in humans (Adrian Owen, Saksida, Bussey), neurochemistry and biology of the brain (Bussey, Prado, Prado, Saksida), marmoset models of the brain (Stefan Everling) and cutting-edge MRI and PET imaging of the brain from mice to marmosets to humans (Ravi Menon). The team also has world-leading expertise in cognitive neurology and dementia (Elizabeth Finger)
This team is integrating imaging and neurochemical analysis of molecular and circuit level mechanisms in the brain with touchscreen-based cognitive assessment of mouse models of infectious and neurodegenerative disease. This team is also harmonizing cognitive assessment across mouse and marmoset models, and human patients.
More specifically, this team is currently working on:
Contact Us
Western University
1151 Richmond Street
London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7
postviralcognition@uwo.ca