To Build a Brain

For your brain to function properly it must receive enough blood. Our brains are encased in our skull and blood is carried to the brain in blood vessels. If our vessels were just 'pipes', when our blood pressure changes such increasing during exercise, the brain would receive an increase in blood volume causing damage through swelling and pressing against the skull. Therefore, our brain blood vessels adapt their size to always maintain the correct blood volume to the brain. In dementia, we see disruption of this process and less blood flow to the brain. Is dementia actually a vascular disease?

Neurons face an extreme challenge: they must build and maintain remarkably complex shapes over a lifetime. The answer? Microtubules - dynamic polymers forming internal “highways”, regulating structure, transport, growth, branching and remodelling. I'll discuss the idea that microtubule behaviour is controlled not by single proteins acting alone, but by teams of regulators that together specify distinct architectures, almost like a molecular code. Exploring these nanoscale, dynamic polymers reframes the brain not just as an electrical network, but a feat of cellular engineering.

The choroid plexus is a small structure producing fluid surrounding and protecting our brain and spinal cord, once assumed to just be clearing waste from the brain. Not anymore! From energy generation to production of essential nutrients to neurotransmitter and protein synthesis, I'll share how our work is revealing the choroid plexus as a major metabolic hub of the brain, and explore why disruption of these processes could contribute to neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. Why does one of the brain’s smallest structures potentially have one of its biggest impacts?