Abstract

The UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) is an initiative funded by the Medical Research Council, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK. Funding details for UK DRI programmes will be added in 2019. Ageing is a central challenge for our societies. Old age carries a high risk of dementia – a condition that is so far neither preventable nor curable. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease (AD). AD is manifest by widespread accumulation of amyloid plaques and tau containing neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. While we know a lot about these molecular and pathological alterations, we still lack an understanding of the cellular and circuit changes that underlie the progression and the symptoms of AD. It is, for example, unknown why, how and when people affected by AD pathology lose the ability to form new memories. The goals of the current application are to develop new ways to directly examine the brain as it starts to begin to develop pathology, using a combination of cutting-edge in vivo microscopy and electrophysiological techniques and novel animal models. The ultimate goal is to identify new therapeutic opportunities and targets to protect cells in the brain from the ravaging effects of tau and amyloid.