Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by reduced dopamine levels in the striatum causing severe motor deficits. Patients are thus often treated with L-DOPA, the precursor of catecholamines, including dopamine, but positive effects of this treatment fade with prolonged treatment resulting in dyskinesia. To model this priming effect of L-DOPA treatment in vivo, Wistar Han rats …

In his PhD project, Joshua Adekunle Babalola from the Medical University of Graz investigates the effect of astaxanthin on Aβ clearance and the functional consequences thereof. Transport across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is an important mediator of beta-amyloid (Aβ) accumulation in the brain and a contributing factor in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). One …

The importance of microglia, the resident brain macrophages, in neurodegenerative diseases is well-known and these cells are therefore frequently used as a target for new pharmacological interventions. At QPS Neuropharmacology, cell isolation of early postnatal microglia from mice is a well-established and standardized method for in vitro analysis of this specific cell type. In addition, …

In her FFG-funded PhD thesis in cooperation with Ludwig Aigner of the Paracelsus University, Salzburg, Austria, Katharina Strempfl currently investigates whether leukotriene inhibition can improve motor impairments in Line 61 mice. Katharina treated Line 61 and non-transgenic (ntg) littermates daily with an oral film (IntelGenx Technologies) containing Montelukast, a cysteinyl leukotriene receptor antagonist that is …

People’s diet can strongly influence their health and wellbeing. Certain diet ingredients can even affect the onset and progression of some diseases. Feeding mice with a special diet can therefore be used to analyze the effect of a diet or dietary component on typical disease pathologies. Depending on the genetic background of mice used for …