The AND-PD consortium met recently at the Karolinska Biomedicum in Stockholm for its 3rd annual consortium meeting which was hosted by Gilberto Fisone and Gilad Silberberg. Neuroscience is a key theme of research at the Biomedicum and the Karolinska Institutet has a rich history in the subject including the research of the Nobel prize-winner Ragnar Granit. The group were excited to visit the state-of-the-art facilities at the Biomedicum, inaugurated in 2018, and of an innovative architectural design specifically to encourage collaborations between scientists from different research fields.
The focus of our meeting was to consolidate the plans for the final year of the project. We began with a review of the remaining work and then went into more detail on the specific tasks.
Firstly, the final work remaining with the animal models of comorbid anxiety/depression in Parkinson's disease was discussed. Elsa Pioli (MOTAC) and Stefano Gustincich (Italian Institutue of Technology) gave an update on progress with this. Some difficulties have been encountered, however, it is expected that the work will be complete by the end of the year.
Discussions then moved on to defining, disrupting and rescuing the neural circuitry that underlies anxiety as a co-morbidity of Parkinsons. Francois Georges (University of Bordeaux), Josh Goldberg (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Raffaella Tonini (Italian Institute of Technology), Gilberto Fisone (Karolinska Institutet) and Rosario Moratalla (CSIC) all updated the group with the progress of their research on this topic. Considerable progress has been made and this work is expected to be largely complete by the end of this year with many publications to come.
The discussion then turned to clinical topics with Lucia Batzu (King's College London) presenting an update on patient recruitment for the mid-brain functional connectivity studies. Considerable effort has been put in to accelerating patient recruitment and this has borne fruit, with recruitment expected to be complete by the end of the year and analysis of the data collected to be complete by June next year. Anette Schrag (University College London) then updated the group on her work on clinical phenotyping of anxiety as a co-morbidity of Parkinson's disease. Two peer reviewed papers have already come from this work - read more here.
The final session of the meeting was a discussion led by Bridget Glaysher (Modus Research and Innovation) of the plans for communication and dissemination of results. There are plans to present the results of the project at a number of scientific conferences and for a number of peer-reviewed papers to be published over the next few months. More details will be made available on this website soon!
After the AND-PD consortium meeting many of the group remained in Stockholm to attend the XIV Meeting of the International Basal Ganglia Society (IBAGS).
IBAGS is a major event for all scientists interested in the molecular, cellular and network organisation of the basal ganglia, and their related neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.
AND-PD research was well-represented at the meeting with François Georges of University of Bordeaux talking about his work on 'Amygdala and basal ganglia interplay' and a further eight poster presentations :
'Emotional alterations are linked to dopamine decline in a progressive mouse model of Parkinson's disease'. Adrián Sanz-Magro, Noelia Granado Mario Garcia-Verdugo, Carlos Salas Maria Grazia Spillantini, Raffaella Tonini and Rosario Moratalla.
'Monoaminergic modulation of the Dorsal Raphe Nucleus shapes the momentary release of serotonin at dorsal striatal circuits' Luca Nava, Yann Pelloux, Leonardo Bontempi, Andrea Locarno, Noemi Barsotti Massimo Pasqualetti and Raffaella Tonini.
'Ongoing movement controls sensory integration in the dorsolateral striatum' Roberto de la Torre Martinez, Maya Ketzef and Gilad Silberberg.
'Serotonin Modulates Polysynaptic Inhibition Between Striatal Cholinergic Interneurons' Joseph Baxendale and Gilad Silberberg.
'Synaptic and mitochondrial dysfunction caused by alfa-synuclein accumulation precedes dopaminergic neurodegeneration in a progressive mouse model of Parkinson´s Disease'. Adrián Sanz-Magro, Noelia Granado, P Lau, Stefano Gustincich, Maria Grazia Spillantini and Rosario Moratalla.
'Whole-brain 3D imaging of dopaminergic systems in cleared Pitx3-deficient Aphakia mouse brains'. Elena Juárez-Escoto, Jenny Kral, Sandra Jurado, Rosario Moratalla.
'The role of the striatopallidal indirect pathway in a mouse model of L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia'. María Sáez, Ettel Keifman, Samuel Alberquilla, Camila Coll, Ramón Reig, Mario G. Murer and Rosario Moratalla.
'Spatiotemporal neuromodulatory wave dynamics in the striatum' L Matityahu, N Gilin, GA Sarpong, NX Tritsch , JR Wickens and JA Goldberg.