Our Publications

We aimed to characterize the genetics of endothelial function and how this influences risk for cardiovascular diseases such as ischemic stroke.

Concussive and subconcussive closed head injury due to repetitive blast or impact trauma represents the most common form of traumatic brain injury (TBI).¹ A subset of this repetitive trauma population goes on to develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), characterized by distinct neuropathologic features as well as cognitive, emotional, and behavioral changes.^2,3 To date, the inciting mechanisms and injury features that predict CTE remain unclear.

To explore the impact of resiliency factors on the longitudinal trajectory of depressive symptoms in patients admitted to the Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit (Neuro-ICU) and their family caregivers.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of radiographic cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) on the severity of acute intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) as measured by: ICH volume, hematoma expansion, and extension of intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH).

To estimate the risk of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) recurrence in a large, diverse, US-based population and to identify racial/ethnic and socioeconomic subgroups at higher risk.

Early-life adversity affects nearly half of all youths in the United States and is a known risk factor for psychiatric disorders across the life course. One strategy to prevent mental illness may be to target interventions toward children who are exposed to adversity, particularly during sensitive periods when these adversities may have even more enduring effects. However, a major obstacle impeding progress in this area is the lack of tools to reliably and validly measure the existence and timing of early-life adversity. In this review, we summarize empirical work across dentistry, anthropology, and archaeology on human tooth development and discuss how teeth preserve a time-resolved record of our life experiences.

Accumulating evidence suggests that neuroinflammatory processes are implicated in the initiation and progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Previous reports have demonstrated an increase in microgliosis and astrogliosis in the lumbar spinal cord of SOD1^G93A transgenic mice before the onset of symptoms, a neuroinflammatory response which correlated with disease progression. Importantly, early stage homeostatic microglia enhanced motor neuron survival, while pro-inflammatory microglia were toxic to motor neurons in the SOD1^G93A mice. Recent studies from our group have demonstrated that cromolyn sodium, an FDA approved compound, exerts neuroprotective effects in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease by altering microglial cell activation. Here, we tested the neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects of cromolyn sodium in the SOD1^G93A mouse model of ALS.

Recently, we reported the development of curcumin analogs and identified a lead compound, curcumin-like compound-R17 (CLC-R17), that significantly attenuates Aβ deposition in an AD transgenic mouse model. Here, we elucidated the mechanisms of this analog on Aβ levels and AβPP processing using cell models of AD. Using biochemical methods and our recently developed nanoplasmonic fiber tip probe technology, we showed that the lead compound potently lowers Aβ levels in conditioned media and reduces oligomeric amyloid levels in the cells.

We aim to provide the reader with an overview of the genes and corresponding biological pathways that have been found to be implicated in rare and common forms of SVD.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder and the primary cause of age-related dementia. The etiology of AD is complex and has not been completely elucidated. Herein, we report that treatment with elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs), a component of the brain extracellular matrix (ECM), significantly increased the levels of AD-related amyloid-β peptides (Aβ) both in vitro and in vivo.

We aimed to investigate the impacts of FcγRI in neuropathic pain through pain-related neurobehavioral studies and underlying mechanisms by biochemical methods in animal and cell models.