Page 60 - MaquetaFundCIEN-2019-ENG

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Annual Report 2019
gies that produce dementia in elderly subjects.
A need for dementia research is the availability of well-diagnosed, classified and long-term preserved brain tissue. Brain banks (biobanks of neurological sam- ples) respond to this need, and the CIEN Foundation has one of the main brain banks in the country, the CIEN Tissue Bank (BT-CIEN, for its acronym in Spanish).
Neuropathology also provides significant support for studies based on animal models of neurological diseases, both for the histological evaluation of trans- genic animals and for the search for natural models of the disease. The De- partment of Neuropathology of the CIEN Foundation participates regularly in the histological evaluation of animal models of different neurodegenerative dis- eases developed by CIBERNED researchers, as well as in the neuropathological study of elderly mammals of the Madrid Zoo.
Department activities
The core activity of the UIPA’s Department of Neuropathology corresponds to the BT-CIEN, both to its organizational and logistical components as well as the neu- ropathological diagnostic work and the management of biological samples.
The Department also participates in numerous collaborations in external research projects, mainly with CIBERNED research groups, and carries out its own internal projects, mainly based on series of cases from post mortem donation. Among the active lines of research in the Department are the following:
• Neuropathological and molecular study of tauopathies, including Alzheimer’s disease. Pathogenic significance and spread of associated cellular lesions. Ar- gyrophilic grains disease and other recently described tauopathies (PART, ART- AG) as models of tauopathy with predominant involvement of the medial tem- poral lobe. Lewy pathology limited to the amygdala. Hippocampal sclerosis and associated TDP-43pathology (LATE).
• Clinicopathological profiles in advanced dementia. Characterization of the combined and mixed pathology and its impact on the clinical trajectories of the patients, with special attention to disease progression rate and survival time (project based mainly on the patient cohort from the residency of the Queen Sofia Foundation Alzheimer’s Center Research Program).
• Pathological role of fungal colonization and the polymicrobial infection of the Central Nervous System in Alzheimer-type pathology. Risk factors and clinical impact. Impact of neuroinflammation associated with polymicrobial infection on the origin and progression of neurodegenerative pathology.
• Distinctive features of Alzheimer-type pathology in nonagenarians and cente- narians. Neuropathological findings in subjects without cognitive disorder above 90 years of age.
• Advance age-associated changes in Central Nervous System and cerebral pa- thology in mammals and non-human primates. Search for natural models of Alzheimer in primates and other mammalian groups.