Alzheimer Association Awards Drs. Scharfman and Ginsberg of the CDR
New York – Dr. Helen Scharfman, head of the Scharfman Lab, receives a three-year grant from the Alzheimer’s Association to pursue her research in “Circuit-based strategies in Alzheimer’s Disease and epilepsy,” The study will address the hypothesis that hyperexcitability in specific circuits within the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, an area of the brain that is critical to memory, occurs early in Alzheimer’s disease. Scharfman looks to answer if anticonvulsant drugs reduce or prevent hyperexcitability that precedes neurodegeneration in the perforant path and hippocampus.
Also from the CDR and head of the Ginsberg Lab, Dr. Stephen Ginsberg receives an Investigator Initiated Research Grant award from the Alzheimer’s Association. The title of his grant, “Effect of caloric restriction on septohippocampal neurons in AD models,” aims to isolate molecular fingerprints from vulnerable and relatively spared septohippocampal populations in Tg2576 and Ts65Dn mice following caloric restriction. Simply, Dr. Ginsberg will look to see how a restricted-calorie diet affects the activity of genes involved in the biochemical pathways of Alzheimer’s-related degeneration.