New technologies for measuring brain changes over time in Parkinson’s disease

Preclinical animal models are required to develop and test new therapies in early stage development. In order to then translate the findings from animal to early stage human trials, it is critical to develop outcome measures that are directly translatable from animal to human.

Recently, neuroimaging assessment techniques have been developed that can be applied in both mouse models and humans. Magnetic resonance imaging techniques can detect neurodegeneration and adaptive changes in network function in ageing and dementia models.

Together with our collaborators in clinical imaging, this research will explore neurodegeneration and network adaptations over time in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease. The ultimate goal of this research will be to identify vulnerable time points of neurodegeneration in this mouse in order to determine windows of intervention. It is our hope that we can develop preclinical testing platforms for novel therapies that are directly applicable to translation to early human trials.