Basic Research

Nutrition and Brain Health Laboratory

Preventing the decline in cognitive function that attends normal and pathologic brain aging is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The current trends of population growth and aging predict dramatic increases in the burden of dementia, cerebrovascular disease and stroke, while therapies for prevention and treatment of these conditions remain limited. Understanding the role of nutrition in brain aging and cognitive decline is of major fundamental, clinical and public health importance because nutritional interventions may offer safe and effective measures for brain protection, and for the insight it can provide into the fundamental mechanisms of brain aging.

The long-term goal of our research program is to establish nutritional and pharmacologic interventions to prevent age-related cognitive impairment. A primary focus is to understand how dietary and genetic modulation of one-carbon metabolism regulates microvascular and neuronal plasticity in the adult and aging brain. We use dietary interventions in rodents to model clinically relevant associations between nutrition and brain-aging in humans (for example, by modifying dietary folate intake). The mechanistic basis for these associations can then be delineated by identifying the integrated effects of diet on in vivo brain metabolism, cellular regulation, cerebrovascular and neuroanatomy, physiology, and ultimately behavior. Integrating these outcomes we aim to: 1) define the role of microvascular plasticity and neuronal-centric processes for maintaining cognitive function; 2) identify diet-responsive microvascular and neuronal signaling pathways; 3) establish new, clinically relevant and urgently needed animal models of vascular cognitive impairment; 4) establish novel, standardized, objective and quantitative anatomical and functional measures of microvascular health for basic and pre-clinical research; thereby laying the foundation for new ways of preventing and treating age-related cognitive impairment

This in vivo work is both informed by and informs ongoing collaborative research projects on epidemiological studies and clinical trials deigned to determine the role of nutritional status, gene-nutrient interactions and nutrition based-interventions on cognitive health in older adults.

In support of these aims we are leading a collaboration with the Fantini laboratory in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University on developing and applying a non-invasive, quantitative near infra-red spectroscopy instrument for fundamental and pre-clinical research in animal models, and for translational application to human studies.

Open positions

Now hiring outstanding, highly motivated PHD and MSc students. 
Background in metabolism and nutrition science, biochemistry or neurobiology are preferred.

Aron_Troen