lab overview

WE ARE INTERESTED IN IMAGING NEURONAL ACTIVITY, VASCULAR FUNCTION, AND METABOLISM IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Dr. Bojana Stefanovic is the Platform Director of Physical Sciences, and the head of the Functional Brain Imaging Lab (fBIL) at Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI), located in midtown Toronto. Our team consists of research associates, research assistants, research technicians, graduate students, and undergraduates with diverse backgrounds in physics or biology. Research at fBIL is focused on developing tools for studying neurovascular coupling and recovery of disease-induced damage in Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, and traumatic brain injury.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly. It’s a deadly condition characterized by the accumulation of misfolded amyloid and tau proteins that lead to inflammation, neuronal dysfunction, and neuronal death, manifested as progressive loss of memory and cognitive decline. Hitherto, most researchers have attempted to treat AD by clearing amyloid or tau proteins or attenuating neuroinflammation.

Although many interventions have shown promise preclinically, all clinical trials to date have failed: there is presently no way to slow down the AD-elicited cognitive decline.

At the same time, many researchers believe that the lack of treatments’ effectiveness in patients is to a large extent attributable to treatments being commenced too late in the disease process and to the majority of treatment strategies being focused on a single target despite the multifactorial nature of the disease. There have thus been widespread calls in the research community to intervene earlier in the disease process - specifically before any symptoms arise, and to broaden the range of treatment targets so as to ameliorate pathological changes in different brain cells and not just neurons.

We have joined forces with Professor JoAnne McLaurin to deploy two photon fluorescence microscopy, electrophysiological recordings, and high field magnetic resonance imaging to examine the changes in the AD-susceptible brains in situ, in the earliest stages of disease progression. We are particularly interested in how brain vascular network and neuronal communication of AD-susceptible regions may be affected, as well as how these changes are manifested in brain’s metabolism. We are also keen on examining how these processes get further compromised in AD that is comorbid with hypertension.