Research areas
Microglial neuroinflammation
The inflammatory response in the brain, neuroinflammation, is implicated in many brain disorders. Several studies suggest that neuroinflammation contributes to disease
progression. Our main research focus is to investigate the role of neuroinflammation in the diseased and healthy brain.
Microglia are the major immune cells in the brain. Therefore, the majority of our projects aim at exploring the function of these cells and to investigate how they contribute to health and disease.
We investigate:
- The function of microglia-related genes and proteins
- The early signs of neuroinflammation
- How microglia interact
- How systemic inflammation affects neuroinflammation
- How inflammation affects cerebrovascular clearance
- How human microglia can be modeled in vitro
Physical activity & brain disorders
Physical activity is linked with a reduced risk of somatic disorders. Interestingly, exercise also affects the inflammatory status in the body.
We study how physical activity affects the molecular processes involved in different brain disorders. Our exercise research ranges from experimental animal studies to epidemiological studies on the Swedish population.
By modeling different brain disorders in mice, we can explore how running exercise affects molecular processes. In the Swedish population, we investigate how a physically active lifestyle affects the risk of developing common brain disorders.
Read more about our exercise-related projects:
Stress & the risk of Alzheimer’s disease
Stress may increase the risk of developing psychiatric and somatic illnesses and seems to affect the immune system.
We investigate how early life stress affects the brain. By analyzing microglial cells, the primary immune cell in the brain, we examine if stress contributes to inflammation in the brain. Our aim is to elucidate if stress-induced microglial activation affects the development of Alzheimer’s disease pathology.
To this end, we use a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease with different approaches: behavioral tests, confocal microscopy, and molecular biology.
Spectroscopy: to measure early signs of brain disorders
Early detection of brain pathology is crucial for providing the proper diagnosis and relevant treatment in time. Neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are caused by abnormal folding and aggregation of certain proteins, including amyloid-beta and alpha-synuclein.
It is possible to identify the early tendencies of abnormal protein folding with infrared spectroscopy. We use infrared spectroscopy to study the structure of proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.