The aim my group is to unravel cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying aging progression and its significance for brain diseases. The group has a long-standing interest in molecular mechanisms of brain remodelling in the aged brain. My group has studied the plasticity of the aging brain in response to stimuli on a background of comorbidities for more than 15 years and to stroke injury for the last 10 years. Neuroinflammation is also at the core of our studies. Recently, we became interested in the treatment of stroke, experimentally, using hypothermia, caloric restriction and stem cells. Overall our results suggest that: (1) although older animals retain the potential for brain plasticity-related cytogenetic events after injury, the expression of key brain plasticity-associated genes and proteins is often attenuated and temporally altered; (2) an important cellular event associated with restricted axonal growth after stroke in aged animals is the early formation of a scar in the infarcted region; (3) Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor lowers mortality and enhances neurogenesis in the brains of post-stroke aged animals; (4) vascular wall reactivity is exacerbated in the post-stroke aged animals. (5)The aged brain can still respond to cellular therapies.

Aged animals models of cerebral ischemia; behavioral analysis; recording of EEG and various physiological parameters by telemetric measurements; MRI for small animals; immunohistochemical procedures, proteomics, genomics.