皇家华人

Dr Emrah Duzel (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience) used UCL-University of Toronto Strategic Partner Funds to collaborate with a leading memory researcher to improve knowledge of the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for memory. Every human has two of these tiny structures in their brain, and understanding more about the hippocampus will help us learn how and why memory differs between people, as well as factors that contribute to cognitive decline and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. There are many researchers around the world focusing on this area of science, and collaborations have the potential to push forward our understanding of this part of the brain even further.

Rosanna Olsen, a Senior Scientist at the Rotman Research Institute at the University of Toronto, is a leading memory researcher and an expert in structural imaging of the hippocampus. Dr Emrah Duzel from UCL has a research interest in the blood supply to the hippocampus. Believing that sharing their knowledge could further the scientific understanding of the hippocampus, they applied for the UCL-University of Toronto Strategic Partner Funds. They were awarded these funds on two occasions 鈥� once in 2019, and again in 2022.

Furthering our understanding of memory

鈥淚t鈥檚 easy to assume that because the hippocampus is in the brain, it must get enough blood in every person. But this is not a given,鈥� Emrah explained. 鈥淧eople actually differ in the way their hippocampus is supplied with blood. Some people have two vessels supplying the hippocampus, and some only have one vessel to supply the whole structure. Knowing if someone has one or two vessels is important, both clinically and from a research perspective.鈥�

As the hippocampus is so small, scanning it to see if there are one or two vessels is difficult using standard scanners. Rosanna suggested they needed a special scanning technique to develop a protocol that could be used in clinical settings.聽

鈥淥ne challenge that faces memory research is that, often, the techniques we use to study memory, aging or cognitive decline are a few steps behind technology that鈥檚 on the cutting edge,鈥� Rosanna explained. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 because you want to make sure it's tried and true before you use it on patients or in a study. But trying out new technologies 鈥� and there鈥檚 something new every year 鈥� might make a big difference and uncover new discoveries about the brain. When you do an experiment like this, you know you might fail, or you might find it won鈥檛 work with a patient population. But it鈥檚 really important to know. I like that Emrah鈥檚 approach is to push the envelope on using new, cutting edge techniques.鈥�

Through this project, the team was able to collaborate with Professor Martina Callaghan to use a new 7 Tesla (7T) scanner at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Neuroimaging. Using this technology, they were able to look at the hippocampus and its blood supply in fine detail. However, 3 Tesla (3T) scanners are much more widely available in clinical settings. As such, they wanted to find ways of identifying the vessel-level detail of the hippocampus on 3T scanners too. 鈥淚t's like looking through the Hubble Telescope and trying to see whether you can use a smaller telescope to see the same thing,鈥� Emrah said. 鈥淚f you can develop a way to identify some of the patterns that the Hubble sees 鈥� but with a smaller telescope 鈥� then you can get measurements and make key knowledge more widely available. That鈥檚 the analogy I like to use. And we made some progress on it through this collaboration.鈥澛�

Paving the way forward

After learning and developing new techniques through this collaboration, Rosanna and her team are now applying them to the 3T scanner in their Toronto lab. She is also applying these techniques with a physicist, Dr Jean Chen, to look at how blood flow can be measured in this region of the brain while individuals are at rest or doing a memory test. 鈥淎ll this work is going to be really important for understanding how people age, and even how healthy people use their hippocampus for everyday memory,鈥� Rosanna said. 鈥淪ome people have better spatial memory, better visual memory, or a more vivid memory versus a more generalised memory. Some of these abilities might have biological underpinnings which is due to the blood supply.鈥�

The work done so far is vital for the team to be eligible for larger grants, which the collaborators are now planning on applying for to further their work. They are also working on a paper about their findings so far.

鈥淭his funding has enabled us to pursue an exciting idea at an international level,鈥� Emrah said. 鈥淲e want to break new ground with this. It鈥檚 enabled us to collect pilot data and establish the groundwork for a much larger project. As scientists, this dedicated funding shows that we鈥檙e part of a valued collaboration between two very good institutions. That鈥檚 very motivating too.鈥�

Links

• Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Picture

• Image provided by聽Dr Emrah Duzel.
• Shaded grey is the outline of the hippocampus. Red and blue are the two supplying arteries highlighted. This image is taken with very high resolution using a 7 Tesla High Field MRI scanner.