Title: Cerebrovascular and inflamm-ageing link to neurodegeneration and dementia.
Short Bio: Dr Axel Montagne joined the UK Dementia Research Institute at Edinburgh in December 2020. He completed his PhD degree at the University of Caen Normandy (France) in 2012, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles from 2013 to 2016. Axel rapidly became Assistant then Associate Professor at USC in 2016 and 2020, respectively. His career has focused on how cerebrovascular dysfunctions contribute to neurodegeneration and dementia in both animal models and humans. In his UK DRI program, he combines molecular approaches with rodent non-invasive imaging, particularly MRI and two-photon microscopy, to study the causes and effects of blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction, with a particular focus on the pericyte-endothelial crosstalk, in the context of neurodegenerative disease. His talk will focus on the preclinical and clinical evidence supporting the vascular contribution to dementia with an emphasis on early pericyte and BBB dysfunctions