IBPS, Paris 

How does the brain respond to Huntington's disease? Insights from systems modelling into adaptation

Neurodegenerative diseases are strongly associated to the production of misfolded
proteins (proteotoxicity) and the consequences of proteotoxic stress on brain homeostasis and
activity. Understanding how the brain can resist to neurodegenerative disease and maintain
function is an active area of research that has strong therapeutic potential. The response of the
brain to neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's disease (HD) can be viewed as a
biological program prescribing the system dynamics, governed by remodeling of a network of
genetic interactions in response to HD and age. The problem is to extract the rules that govern
the molecular and cellular dynamics of HD in such ways that precise testable hypotheses can be
generated for subsequent evaluation in biological models of the disease. The solution that we
have developed to this problem is to employ network methods for generating and cross-
integrating HD networks. Network analysis of a large amount of HD data highlights a model in
which several waves of molecular adaptation may underlie the dynamic of HD, involving
specific synaptic homeostasis and cell survival pathways.

Date : 15/10/2016

Lieu : Amphithéâtre Carnot

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