i3S collects the two Santa Casa Neuroscience Awards
This year, two Santa Casa Neurosciences Prizes - the Melo and Castro Prize and the Mantero Belard Prize (each worth 200,000 euros) - were awarded to two i3S researchers: Mónica Sousa and Paulo Aguiar. It’s the first time, after ten editions of these Awards, that any Institute has received both prizes in the same year.
The objective of the winning projects was to Identify the signals that allow the spinal cord to regenerate in mammals and analyzing in detail the neurophysiological data of patients with Parkinson’s Disease implanted with the new generation of neurostimulators.
The Melo and Castro Prize was awarded to Mónica Sousa for the project “TARGET: Translating the regenerative capacity of Acomys”. The researchers group recently discovered (with the support of Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa and Wings for Life) that the African spiny mouse (Acomys) is capable of regenerating and recovering function after a complete spinal cord injury - which is unique in mammals. The project intends to continue to unravel the mechanisms underlying the regenerative capacity of the spinal cord of Acomys.
To develop the project, the team led by Mónica Sousa will compare the response of the Acomys mouse to spinal cord injury with the response of the common mouse (a species without regenerative capacity), using genetic transcription analysis at different post-injury times. “The knowledge acquired in this analysis will make it possible to modify the environment of the spinal cord and the neurons of the common mouse, in order to make this species capable of regenerating”, explains the researcher.
This work, emphasizes Mónica Sousa, “could be a starting point for the development of new therapies for patients with spinal cord injury”, since until now there are no effective therapeutic options. The main obstacles to the treatment of these conditions is the formation of a scar at the site of injury and the inability of adult neurons to regenerate.
The Mantero Belard Prize was awarded to the project led by Paulo Aguiar: “Improving the Effectiveness of Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinson's Disease, with Personalized Electrophysiological Biomarkers and Stimulation Based on Objective Quantitative Assessments”. This project, explains the researcher “takes advantage of a new generation of neurostimulators that, in addition to the electrical stimulation component, also has the ability to record neuronal activity in the area of the brain that is being stimulated”. The project team brings together experts in neuroengineering, Parkinson’s disease (PD), deep brain stimulation (DBS), and advanced analysis of electrophysiological signals, who are developing strategies that use information from neuronal activity to improve DBS-based therapies.
Paulo Aguiar says that the objective “is to develop ‘intelligent’ algorithms that optimize the parameters of electrical stimulation according to the characteristics of the neuronal activity of each patient”. In addition to the i3S, this project has the collaboration of clinicians from Centro Hospitalar Universitário S. João and researchers from INESC-TEC.