Grant: Catalyst Grant: Environments, Genes and Chronic Disease

It has been shown that brain injuries could contribute to neuronal cell death and learning and memory deficits. Our preliminary study indicates that the expression of a subset of genes was altered after head injuries and the changes might contributes to the development of Alzheimer's disease. This proposal is to define epigenetic modification effect of brain injuries on gene expression leading to dementia and its underlying mechanism. The results could provide insights into the role of traumatic brain injuries in neurodegeneration and learning and memory dysfunction, which is fundamentally important to develop novel ways to prevent and treat brain injury-associated Alzheimer's disease-related dementia.