Early detection of age-related memory disorders in mice and application to human study – AGE

The aim of this project is to detect early age-related memory deficit, occurring before neuronal death, and to characterize molecular and cellular processes sustaining these memory impairments. In order to manage the different aspects of the project we are going to associate our innovative behavioral analysis, which constitute the core of the project developed in the team with biochemical (immediate early gene-immunocytochemistry) and molecular (synaptosomes- western blot) approaches. In addition, we are going to beneficiate of collaborations we already established with neurobiologists, neurophysiologists and computing neuroscientists. - - The project is divided in three points: 1) Using behavioral analysis allowing early detection of spatial navigation deficits and mice as an animal model, we plan to map the neuronal network involved in the different strategies of navigation in order to identify the dysfunctional structure(s) associated with aging. 2) We will then focus on the identification of cellular and molecular mechanisms sustaining the impaired processes. 3) We finally will consider potential application for early detecting of spatial memory deficit in humans in the domain of age-related deficits. - ...