
Exploring the Locales of Cognitive Decline
NOMIS Research Project
Despite decades of extensive research, the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases — Alzheimer’s disease and vascular encephalopathy — remain essentially untreatable, and the fundamental mechanisms of neurodegeneration have yet to be discovered. Based on past experience, progress may come through the deployment of novel technologies — particularly by taking advantage of unbiased, hypothesis-free paradigms.
The project, entitled Exploring the Locales of Cognitive Decline: Cellular and Molecular 3D Atlases of Brain Pathology in Aging and in Neurodegeneration, proposes the combining of high-content three-dimensional morphology with sophisticated fluorochrome chemistry and molecular methods of genome interrogation/perturbation. These techniques will enable the creation of detailed atlases of the cell types that drive damage in various models of neurodegeneration.

Adriano Aguzzi
Professor of neuropathology and director of the Institute of Neuropathology
University of Zurich