The hands, our silent performers in daily life, face overwhelming challenges when neurological impairments disrupt the simple tasks that compose our daily symphony. This thesis unveils a comprehensive framework for the objective monitoring of upper-limb re ...
A spinal cord injury (SCI) triggers a cascade of molecular and cellular responses involving inflammatory cell infiltration and cytokine release, apoptosis, demyelination, excitotoxicity, ischemia, and the formation of a fibrotic scar surrounded by an astro ...
Here, we show that, in the developing spinal cord, after the early Wnt-mediated Tcf transcription activation that confers dorsal identity to neural stem cells, neurogenesis redirects beta-catenin from the adherens junctions to the nucleus to stimulate Tcfo ...
The myelinated white matter tracts of the central nervous system (CNS) are essential for fast transmission of electrical impulses and are often differentially affected in human neurodegenerative diseases across CNS region, age and sex. We hypothesize that ...
The body axis of vertebrate embryos is periodically subdivided into 3D multicellular units called somites. While genetic oscillations and molecular prepatterns determine the initial length-scale of somites, mechanical processes have been implicated in sett ...
In amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) caused by SOD1 gene mutations, both cell-autonomous and noncell-autonomous mechanisms lead to the selective degeneration of motoneurons (MN). Here, we evaluate the therapeutic potential of gene therapy targeting mutat ...
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting motor neurons. In ALS mice, neurodegeneration is associated with the proliferative restorative attempts of ependymal stem progenitor cells (epSPCs) that normally lie i ...
Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in a severing of axonal connections that leads to permanent sensorimotor deficits. In cases of incomplete injury, rehabilitation paradigms have been reported to be successful in improving behavioral outcome in humans with S ...
The secreted glycoprotein sonic hedgehog (Shh) is expressed in the prechordal mesoderm, where it plays a crucial role in induction and patterning of the ventral forebrain. Currently little is known about how Shh is regulated in prechordal tissue. Here we s ...
Inducing organogenesis in 3D culture is an important aspect of stem cell research. Anterior neural structures have been produced from large embryonic stem cell (ESC) aggregates, but the steps involved in patterning such complex structures have been ill def ...
