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Institute Of NeuroScience

Louvain Aging Brain Lab

ions | Bruxelles Woluwe, Louvain-la-Neuve

 

The Louvain Aging Brain LAB aims to study the manifestations related to normal and pathological aging, including those caused by Alzheimer's disease and other related diseases. Our research tools include neuropsychological tests (e.g., memory, language tests), imaging techniques (MRI/PET) that measure brain lesions or their effects on the brain, biological analyses of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma, the analysis of genetic risk factors, and post-mortem analyses of human brain samples using both high-field neuroimaging and mass spectrometry for biochemical characterization of brain proteins. Our populations of interest include patients with cognitive impairment who visit the memory clinic, asymptomatic people with a family risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, and both young and old clinically normal individuals.

The Louvain Aging Brain is also interested in exploring the cognitive difficulties that are encountered in other neurodegenerative diseases, such as frontotemporal lobe degeneration (FTLD), cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), and parkinsonian syndromes. Through this spectrum of diseases, our aim is to better understand the links between the biochemical alterations observed on some proteins, the regional distribution of various neuropathologies in the brain, and cognitive symptoms.

 

Principal Investigators

Postdoctoral Researchers

PhD students

Alumni

  • Nathalie Kyalu Ngoie Zola
  • Emilien Boyer
  • Youssef Bellaali
  • Vincent Malotaux
  • Mélina Regy

 

Louvain Aging Brain Lab

 

UCLouvain / Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc collaborations

  • Laurence Dricot, Neuroimaging platform (NIMA), Institute of NeuroScience, UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium.
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  • Renaud Lhommel: Nuclear Medicine Department, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc and Institut de recherche expérimentale et clinique (IREC), MIRO Lab, UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium.
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  • Philippe Lefèvre: Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics and Applied Mathematics, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
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  • Pascal Kienlen-Campard: AGing And Dementia lab (AGAD), Institute of NeuroScience, UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium.
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  • Didier Vertommen: MassProt platform, De Duve Institute, UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium.
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  • Bernard Gallez & Nicolas Joudiou: Louvain Drug Research Institute (LDRI), Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Lab, Nuclear & Electron Spin technologies platform, UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium.
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  • Benoît Lengelé & Catherine Behets: Institut de recherche expérimentale et clinique (IREC), Anatomy Lab, UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium.
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  • Dr. Morel Lawson, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Brussels, Belgium.
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  • Dietmar Thal: Leuven Brain Institute, Laboratory of neuropathology, KULeuven, Leuven, Belgium.

National and international collaborations

  • Christine Bastin, GIGA CRC In vivo Imaging (Aging & Memory), Liège, Belgium.
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  • Dietmar Thal & Sandra Tomé : Leuven Brain Institute, Laboratory of neuropathology, KULeuven, Leuven, Belgium.
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  • Nikolai Axmacher : Department of Neuropsychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.

Research networks

  • Amypad (PI: Frederik Barkho, Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands).
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  • MedResyst (PI: Benoît Macq, Institute for Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics, and Applied Mathematics (ICTEAM), Louvain School of Engineering, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium).
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  • Innoviris Translate AD (PI: Sebastiaan Engelborghs, NEUR Research Group, Center for Neurosciences (C4N), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium). 

Fundings 

Fondation Saint-Luc, Fondation Louvain, Fondation Stop Alzheimer

  • Lisa Quenon: Deep cognitive phenotyping and plasma analyses to predict early tau aggregation in preclinical AD.
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  • Lise Colmant: effects of ageing and early stages of Alzheimer's disease on spatial navigation, and relationship between the mesio-temporal lobe tauopathy and brain amyloidosis on spatial navigation.
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  • Thomas Gérard: Validation and clinical use of F18-MK6240 PET imaging to visualize the anatomical distribution of tau pathological aggregates in Alzheimer’s and non-Alzheimer’s tauopathies.
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  • Lara Huyghe: Study of cognitive changes occurring early in Alzheimer's disease and their links with regional deposits of tau protein and other biomarkers of the disease.
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  • Axelle A.T. Vanparys: UbiTau - This project investigates the role of ubiquitination impairment as both a biomarker of tauopathies, focusing on human brain and cerebrospinal fluid, and as a causative agent of these diseases, using specific biological models.
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  • Yasmine Salman: Study of the impact of proteinopathies, mainly tauopathy on the medial temporal lobe anatomy using variety of neuropathological and neuroimaging techniques, including high-field post-mortem MRI (11.7T) and tau-PET imaging.
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  • Nicolas Delinte: Study of the microstructural properties of the brain via diffusion MRI to create biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease.
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  • Flo Blondiaux-Pirson: Data management & development of a clinical value-driven data-sharing ecosystem for the Translate-AD initiative (Innoviris).
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  • Clémence Balty: PTauMS - elucidate the role of post-translational modifications of the tau protein in pathogenic tau precipitation.
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  • Jean-Louis Bayart: Study and explore new blood biomarkers for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and its differential diagnosis with other neurodegenerative diseases.
  • Quenon, Lisa ; Collij, Lyduine E. ; Garcia, David Vállez ; Lopes Alves, Isadora ; Gérard, Thomas ; et. al. Amyloid-PET imaging predicts functional decline in clinically normal individuals. In: Alzheimer's Research & Therapy, Vol. 16, no.1, p. 13 (2024) http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/296660
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  • Salman, Yasmine ; Gérard, Thomas ; Huyghe, Lara ; Colmant, Lise ; Quenon, Lisa ; et. al. Amygdala atrophies in specific subnuclei in preclinical Alzheimer's disease. In: Alzheimer's & Dementia, (2024) http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/291901
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  • Colmant, Lise ; Boyer, Emilien ; Gérard, Thomas ; Sleegers, Kristel ; Lhommel, Renaud ; Ivanoiu, Adrian ; Lefèvre, Philippe ; Kienlen-Campard, Pascal ; Hanseeuw, Bernard. Definition of a Threshold for the Plasma Aβ42/ Aβ40 Ratio Measured by Single-Molecule Array to Predict the Amyloid Status of Individuals without Dementia. In: International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Vol. 25, no.2, p. 1173 (2024). doi:10.3390/ijms25021173. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/285084
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  • Malotaux, Vincent ; Colmant, Lise ; Quenon, Lisa ; Huyghe, Lara ; Gérard, Thomas ; Dricot, Laurence ; Ivanoiu, Adrian ; Lhommel, Renaud ; Hanseeuw, Bernard. Suspecting Non-Alzheimer’s Pathologies and Mixed Pathologies: A Comparative Study Between Brain Metabolism and Tau Images. In: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Vol. 97, no.1, p. 421-433 (2024). doi:10.3233/jad-230696. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/285086
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  • Gérard, Thomas ; Colmant, Lise ; Malotaux, Vincent ; Salman, Yasmine ; Huyghe, Lara ; et. al. The spatial extent of tauopathy on [18F]MK-6240 tau PET shows stronger association with cognitive performances than the standard uptake value ratio in Alzheimer’s disease. In: European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, (2024) http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/285085
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  • Colmant, Lise ; Bierbrauer, Anne ; Bellaali, Youssef ; Kunz, Lukas ; Van Dongen, Jasper ; et. al. Dissociating effects of aging and genetic risk of sporadic Alzheimer’s disease on path integration. In: Neurobiology of aging, Vol. 131, p. 170-181 (2023). http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/277627
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  • Malotaux, Vincent ; Dricot, Laurence ; Quenon, Lisa ; Lhommel, Renaud ; Ivanoiu, Adrian ; et. al. Default-Mode Network Connectivity Changes During the Progression Toward Alzheimer's Dementia: A Longitudinal Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study. In: Brain connectivity, Vol. 13, no. 5, p. 287-296 (2023) http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/269010
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  • Kyalu Ngoie Zola, Nathalie ; Balty, Clémence ; Pyr dit Ruys, Sébastien ; Vanparys, Axelle A. T. ; Huyghe, Nicolas D. G. ; Herinckx, Gaëtan ; Johanns, Manuel ; Boyer, Emilien ; Kienlen-Campard, Pascal ; Rider, Mark H. ; Vertommen, Didier ; Hanseeuw, Bernard. Specific post-translational modifications of soluble tau protein distinguishes Alzheimer’s disease and primary tauopathies. In: Nature Communications, Vol. 14, no.1 (2023). doi:10.1038/ s41467-023-39328-1. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/275792