Unconventional IRE1 activation for promoting brain resilience

It has been appreciated for decades that cognitive decline and dementia are frequently accompanied by changes that cause proteins within brain cells to clump abnormally into structures called neurofibrillary tangles. Resilient brains are better able to resist this process but the underlying mechanisms for why individuals’ brains are either more or less resilient are not fully understood. This research seeks to understand the intrinsic mechanisms inside cells that help to determine whether proteins inside our brain cells clump or remain well-behaved. The team discovered a novel mechanism that controls one of the key defenses against protein clumping. Understanding how this defense system works and how it can be influenced to work better is the ultimate goal of this research project.