Roberta Battistella, PhD student in the Lundgaard lab and part of MultiPark, defended her PhD thesis entitled “Methods to study glymphatic system in rodents´ brain during physiological and pathophysiological processes” on the 1st of December. Roberta was the first to join the Lundgaard lab, a moment when the glymphatic system had just recently been described.
In her exciting project, Roberta developed standardized methods for studying the glymphatic function on macroscopic and microscopic level in Parkinson’s disease. Since accumulation of aggregated forms of a-synuclein is implicated in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Roberta and Iben hypothesized that the glymphatic system might be implicated in this process.
During her PhD, Roberta observed in her mouse models that a-synuclein inclusions in the brain are linked not only to a more aggressive progression of Parkinsons disease but also to compromised glymphatic function.
In an interview with Martina Svensson, communicator at MultiPark, Roberta carefully explains that glymphatic dysfunction may not lead to Parkinsons Disease, however, it can accelerate the progression, which goes along with the fact that the glymphatic system is less efficient in aged persons.
Read more about Roberta Battistella in Lund University Research Portal