Contribution to a book

There are currently no disease-modifying therapies for Parkinson’s disease (PD), and the available therapies only relieve the symptoms and not disease progression. Cell replacement therapy to restore the degenerating neurons is a promising approach to treating advanced stages of PD. [...]

Amyloid imaging represents a noninvasive molecular imaging procedure allowing in vivo assessment and quantification of amyloid plaque pathology in the brain. Amyloid plaque pathology is considered one major neuropathological hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. [...]

Pattern completion is a mechanism that allows humans to infer a whole unit based on partial information. Memory theorists have posited that hippocampal pattern completion underlies recollection of episodic memories. [...]

Ca2+ signaling of astrocytes plays a central role in the physiology and pathophysiology of these non-neuronal cells in the brain. Decades of research have revealed the heterogeneity of astrocytic Ca2+ signals and how they are triggered, how they propagate, what mechanisms sustain them, and what their downstream effects are on the cellular, network, and behavioral level. [...]

Microglia appeared as the major player in the remodeling of synapses under physiological and pathophysiological conditions, in particular during development, forgetting, and neuroinflammation. In this chapter, we describe in vivo two-photon photodamage of single synapses to induce microglia–synapse interactions. [...]

The structural plasticity of dendritic spines is associated with changes in various cognitive performances across physiological and pathological conditions. With the rapid development of imaging and labelling methods, in vivo study of dendritic spine dynamics has been made possible from superficial to deep layers in many brain regions. [...]

The first line of defense for the central nervous system (CNS) against injury or disease is provided by microglia. Microglia were long believed to stay in a dormant/resting state, reacting only to injury or disease. [...]

Functional connectivity (FC) patterns from resting-state fMRI data provide relevant information for understanding brain function. In this research, we propose a representation of FC patterns in the form of a sparse graphical model that characterizes brain dynamics. [...]

The neural cell adhesion molecule NCAM is known to mediate cell–to–cell and cell–to–extracellular matrix (ECM) adhesion via homophilic and heterophilic interactions. During brain development, NCAM and the associated glycan, polysialic acid (polySia), play important roles in cell migration proliferation, neurite outgrowth and fasciculation, and synaptogenesis. [...]

Learning is an essential skill that humans and animals need to interact successfully with stimuli in their surrounding environment. Discovering the learning motifs applied by humans and animals is a highly complex task. [...]