Ana Sebastião Lab

Neuronal Communication & Synaptopathies

Neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases constitute an overwhelming social and economic load, with predicted exponential increase in the near future due to ageing, drug abuse, traumatic life styles. There is growing awareness that a common feature in these diseases is a dysfunction of neuronal communication, that is to say, a synaptic dysfunction. The major focus of the Unit is to evaluate how synapses are modulated and how these processes are altered by disease states or reverted by putative therapeutics.

Under specific focus at the moment are synaptic dysfunction in developmental epilepsy pathologies such as Rett syndrome, synaptic circuitry remodeling after stroke and seizures, synaptic reorganization after chronic drug abuse, functional alterations of synaptic function at the onset of neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.