Morris K. Udall Centers of Excellence for Parkinson's Disease Research at Emory University

项目摘要-整体中心 埃默里大学莫里斯·K·尤德尔帕金森病卓越研究中心 大学是一个合作研究项目，研究帕金森症的病理生理学，目标是 优化帕金森氏病(PD)的治疗。该中心利用了已被证明的基础能力 埃默里的Ganglia研究社区进行协作翻译研究。尤德尔中心的其他资产包括埃默里的耶克斯国家灵长类研究中心可供研究的灵长类动物， 以及美国最大的运动障碍诊所之一的存在。该中心由四个项目和三个核心组成。这项计划中的研究将阐明人们对帕金森症相关活动知之甚少的大脑皮质中特定的投射神经元组的活动变化，这反过来又将 帮助我们更好地了解帕金森氏症的病理生理学，并优化治疗策略。项目1(由Jaeger博士领导)将利用啮齿动物实验进行大规模电压成像和脑切片记录，并使用神经计算方法开发帕金森症皮质功能障碍的机制模型。项目2(加尔文博士)，将探索皮质纹状体和任务相关的自发活动 正常和正常大鼠初级运动皮质(M1)和辅助运动区(SMA)的皮质脊髓神经元 帕金森病猴子，使用光标记方法来识别记录的神经元的投射目标。项目3(史密斯博士)将检查灵长类动物M1和SMA微回路的形态变化以及与帕金森病相关的皮质投射神经元连接体的变化，这个主题几乎没有被探索过，与项目1和2中的数据解释高度相关。临床项目4是对反应抑制任务中与帕金森症相关的皮质活动变化的研究 帕金森病患者的皮质脑电和脑电信号。机能实验 还将研究左旋多巴和脑深部刺激治疗在这些范例中的效果。所有项目 将由一个行政核心提供支助(核心A，威奇曼博士，PI；史密斯博士，副主任，#年。 服务核心为项目1和项目2提供解剖服务，为项目2和项目3提供行为评估，并为所有项目提供统计服务(核心B，Galvan博士)。一家诊所 CORE(CORE C)将支持项目4，为人体研究提供征聘和后勤服务。除了……之外 为了履行其研究使命(目标1)，中心将帮助青年科学家发展他们在PD研究(目标2)方面的事业，并将参与广泛的外联努力，旨在宣传中心(和Udall 中心网络)向公众公布研究成果(目标3)，覆盖所有年龄段和背景水平。作为一部分 在外展议程中，该中心计划为患者及其照顾者组织年度外展活动。 慷慨的内部支助资金将帮助中心资助其一些教育和外联任务，如 以及它的试点拨款计划，旨在扩大埃默里大学的PD研究。

Project Summary – Overall Center The Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Center of Excellence for Parkinson’s Disease Research at Emory University is a collaborative research program that studies the pathophysiology of parkinsonism with the goal of optimizing the treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD). The Center draws upon the proven ability of the basal ganglia research community at Emory to conduct collaborative translational research. Other Udall Center assets are the availability of primates for research at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory, and the presence of one of the largest movement disorders clinic in the US. The Center consists of four projects and three cores. The planned research will shed light on the poorly understood parkinsonism-related activity changes of specifically identified groups of projection neurons in the cerebral cortex which, in turn, will help us to better understand the pathophysiology of parkinsonism, and to optimize therapeutic strategies. Project 1 (led by Dr. Jaeger) will utilize rodent experiments for large-scale voltage imaging and brain slice recordings and use neural computational approaches to develop mechanistic models of cortical dysfunction in parkinsonism. Project 2 (Dr. Galvan), will explore the spontaneous and task-related activity of corticostriatal and corticospinal neurons in the primary motor cortex (M1) and the supplementary motor area (SMA) in normal and parkinsonian monkeys, using an opto-tagging approach to identify the projection targets of the recorded neurons. Project 3 (Dr. Smith) will examine morphological changes in the M1 and SMA microcircuitry and parkinsonism-associated changes in the connectome of cortical projection neurons in primates, a topic that is virtually unexplored and of high relevance to the interpretation of data in projects 1 and 2. The clinical ‘Catalyst’ project 4 is an examination of parkinsonism-related changes in cortical activity in response inhibition tasks, studied in electrocorticography and electroencephalography signals in patients with PD. The functional experiments will also study the effects of levodopa and deep brain stimulation treatments in these paradigms. All projects will be supported by an administrative core (Core A, Dr. Wichmann, PI; Dr. Smith, Associate Director, Ms Holbrook, administrator), and by a service core that provides anatomical services to projects 1 and 2, behavioral assessments to projects 2 and 3, and statistical services to all projects (Core B, Dr. Galvan). A clinical core (Core C) will support project 4 with recruitment and logistic services for the human studies. In addition to pursuing its research mission (aim 1), the Center will help young scientists to develop their career in PD research (aim 2), and will engage in extensive outreach efforts, aimed at communicating the Center’s (and Udall Center network) research findings to the public (aim 3), reaching all age groups and background levels. As part of the outreach agenda, the center plans to organize annual outreach events for patients and their caregivers. Generous internal support funds will help the Center to fund some of its education and outreach missions, as well as its pilot grant program, designed to expand PD research at Emory.