My research focuses on the mechanisms that cause specific symptoms experienced by patients with different neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Dementia with Lewy Bodies and Parkinson's disease. We use brain tissue from well characterised donors and a variety of experimental approaches to investigate symptoms such as visual hallucinations, depression, anxiety, and memory problems. Our approach involves quantitative neuropathological investigation to determine if specific cell loss or pathology underpins symptoms and also molecular approaches including RNAseq, protein methods and genetic analysis to build an understanding of the different disorders to identify specific treatments.
My research also looks at how specific toxins might affect the nervous system and how they might contribute to late onset neurodegeneration. We are interested in how environmental chemicals, man made or natural, contribute to specific disorders such as Parkinson's disease. Understanding the mode of action of these chemicals may provide us with evidence of how the different neurodegenerative disorders occur.
