{"id":53937,"date":"2025-02-24T14:12:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T19:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/?p=53937"},"modified":"2025-12-01T14:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T19:06:07","slug":"413729-nih-grant-helps-to-study-the-link-between-stroke-and-alzheimers-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/2025\/02\/24\/413729-nih-grant-helps-to-study-the-link-between-stroke-and-alzheimers-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"$413,729 NIH grant helps to study the link between stroke and Alzheimer\u2019s disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why does stroke increase the risk of Alzheimer\u2019s disease and other dementias?<\/h3>\n<p>Assistant Professor Claudia Fallini is at work on a new $413,729 NIH grant to investigate the link between stroke and Alzheimer\u2019s disease. She hopes her research will lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to Alzheimer\u2019s disease, as well as to improved stroke outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>Ischemic stroke, caused by lack of blood supply to the brain, kills and damages brain cells, often triggering harmful neuroinflammation or other pathological changes that have been associated with Alzheimer\u2019s disease and dementia. However, it is unclear how and why stroke can trigger these changes, and exactly how such changes increase the risk of developing Alzheimer\u2019s dementia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a knowledge gap around which cellular pathways cause or contribute to dementia after a stroke,\u201d says Fallini, a professor in the URI College of Pharmacy with a joint appointment to the <a href=\"https:\/\/ryaninstitute.uri.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">George &amp; Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience<\/a>. \u201cIt is important to bridge this gap in order to understand how stroke affects your risk for developing Alzheimer\u2019s disease and finding potential ways to mitigate that risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One potential pathway of interest includes the actin cytoskeleton, which plays a critical role in various cellular functions and has long been a focus of Fallini\u2019s research. \u201cIschemic stroke has been shown to induce drastic changes in the actin cytoskeleton,\u201d says Fallini. \u201cOne of our questions is to look at how some of the changes we see in this pathway after a stroke could make surviving brain cells more vulnerable to age-related stressors or other factors linked to Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She hopes the project will be a step toward potential new therapies. \u201cWe hope that our work will provide new pieces of the puzzle toward a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms that lead to cognitive decline and dementia,\u201d Fallini says. \u201cIf we can identify what\u2019s happening in the brain after a stroke that causes or contributes to dementia and Alzheimer\u2019s disease, we have a better chance to intervene.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why does stroke increase the risk of Alzheimer\u2019s disease and other dementias? Assistant Professor Claudia Fallini is at work on a new $413,729 NIH grant to investigate the link between stroke and Alzheimer\u2019s disease. She hopes her research will lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to Alzheimer\u2019s disease, as well as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":53938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[35,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-news-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53939,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53937\/revisions\/53939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}