Researchers share their Spatial Discoveries in Neurology Research

 

Schizophrenia tops the psychiatric disorder list, both historically and clinically. Despite decades of research and dozens of hypotheses, we still do not understand its mechanisms. While the contemporary research focuses on the prefrontal cortex, our transcriptome assessment of 35 brain regions identified part of the temporal lobe and subcortical regions, including white matter tracks, as primary schizophrenia targets. Spatial transcriptome and proteome analyses of the prefrontal and temporal cortices confirmed this result, further revealing particular alterations of the superficial cortical layers involving genes linked to schizophrenia by the whole-genome association studies.

 

Focal Cortical Dysplasia (FCD) is the commonest malformation encountered in surgically-resected brain tissue of patients with Focal Epilepsy, and it is characterised by dyslamination and the presence of abnormal cell types, including dysmorphic neurons and balloon cells. It remains unclear how these abnormal cell types contribute to epileptogenesis. The work presented today shows results obtained using the GeoMx Digital Spatial cell Profiler technology to analyse the transcriptome of dysmorphic neurons and balloon cells in the surgically-resected brain samples of four patients with Focal Cortical Dysplasia Type IIB.

 

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