Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects over 55 million individuals worldwide, however its etiology is unknown. Although the presence of amyloid plaques and protein deposits throughout the brain is a common feature, they are not necessary for the diagnosis of the disease. In fact, it is not known whether these plaques and deposits are the cause of the disease or a symptom. Alzheimer's disease begins in the region of the brain that controls memory, known as the hippocampus. Animal models that study AD do not fully mimic what is seen in humans, and current human models focus on cells that are found in the cortex, which is not affected until late stages of AD. My proposal will create a human hippocampus model that I will use to identify the early changes associated with AD in that brain region. I will use stem cells from individuals diagnosed with AD and turn them into hippocampal brain cells to study how they develop and function differently compared to healthy controls. I will be using technologies that allow the identification and quantification of different cell types over time to understand how the disease may change their growth and maturation. Finally, by combining the human hippocampus model with the rat brain to create connections between the brain and the human cells to see how they are different in individuals with AD. This study will create a human model for AD and identify early changes that cannot be observed using animal models or post-mortem tissue. The findings of this study can be used to find potential biomarkers for early diagnosis and the development of treatments.