A) Glucose is the main brain fuel. Functional brain imaging applied to diseases as frequent as dementia or epilepsy often suggests focally reduced glucose abundance. Yet, key implications of this phenomenon remain under investigated, including: 1) downstream metabolic flux from glucose in normal and disease states, 2) mechanisms of alternative fuels currently under clinical investigation and 3) neurophysiological and cognitive outcomes to be expected of metabolic treatments.
B) Clinical experience and world population-level data indicate that most neurological disability stems from motor dysfunction. Yet, spontaneous superperformer mutations occur in a variety of persons and animals, illustrating that the intrinsic motor capacity of the organism can be augmented. We set out to identify similar mutations by rotarod screening of 32,726 laboratory mice harboring chemically induced random mutations with the goal of mechanistically explaining motor superperformance.
Biography
Dr. Juan M. Pascual is the inaugural Abe Chutorian MD Professor and Chief of the Division of Child Neurology. His laboratory research, mostly funded by NINDS, spans virtually the entire field of neuroscience, including medical neuroscience, from molecular structure and function (including drug action) to neural physiology and metabolism at the cellular, circuit and whole-brain level and neurogenetics, all of which is complemented with human studies and clinical trials. Research greatly influences his clinical activities and patient observations guide his research. His laboratory is home to scientists from very diverse backgrounds and levels of training who have joined efforts to endow both neurology and developmental medicine with a strong scientific basis.
Shariff, M., Dobariya, A., Albaghdadi, O., Awkal, J., Moussa, H., Reyes, G., Syed, M., Hart, R., Longfellow, C., Douglass, D., El Ahmadieh, T. Y., Good, L. B., Jakkamsetti, V., Kathote, G., Angulo, G., Ma, Q., Brown, R., Dunbar, M., Shelton, J. M., Evers, B. M., … Pascual, J. M. (2023). Maintenance of pig brain function under extracorporeal pulsatile circulatory control (EPCC).Scientific reports, 13(1), 13942. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-39344-7
Dobariya, A., El Ahmadieh, T. Y., Good, L. B., Hernandez-Reynoso, A. G., Jakkamsetti, V., Brown, R., Dunbar, M., Ding, K., Luna, J., Kallem, R. R., Putnam, W. C., Shelton, J. M., Evers, B. M., Azami, A., Geramifard, N., Cogan, S. F., Mickey, B., & Pascual, J. M. (2022). Recording of pig neuronal activity in the comparative context of the awake human brain.Scientific reports, 12(1), 15503. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-19688-2
Jakkamsetti, V., Marin-Valencia, I., Ma, Q., Good, L. B., Terrill, T., Rajasekaran, K., Pichumani, K., Khemtong, C., Hooshyar, M. A., Sundarrajan, C., Patel, M. S., Bachoo, R. M., Malloy, C. R., & Pascual, J. M. (2019). Brain metabolism modulates neuronal excitability in a mouse model of pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency.Science translational medicine, 11(480), eaan0457. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan0457
