Fernanda G. De Felice | Principal Investigator
felice@bioqmed.ufrj.br
My research focuses on investigating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the connection between Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and type 2 diabetes/obesity. Recent and intriguing studies have indicated that AD and diabetes are intimately connected at multiple levels. However, the mechanistic underpinnings of this connection have only recently begun to be unravelled with significant contributions from my group.
We are keen to discover cellular mechanisms leading to insulin resistance in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease models. We further study how diabetes and obesity lead to defects in the brain and favor the manifestation of dementia and AD. In parallel, as part of my collaborative work at Queen’s University, I am interested in developing a non-human primate model (NHP) of AD that presents neuropathological and cognitive correlates of the human disease.
LInDA team and friends, Dec 2016
De Felice participates in PALS, a network of international academic centers that have come together to transform windows of vulnerability to mental and physical disorders into windows of neuroscientific advance with diagnostic and therapeutic implications. Vulnerability can result from genetic factors, social adversity, environmental exposures and lifestyle choices. These risk factors interact to increase allostatic load which, in turn, may contribute in the development of brain-based psychopathology (eg. cognitive impairment, depressive disorders, dementia), resulting from and interacting reciprocally with somatic pathology (eg. obesity, Type II diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome). Click here to see more about PALS network.