Craig Brown

Knockdown of endothelial Serpine1 improves stroke recovery by attenuating peri-infarct blood flow and blood brain barrier disruption Focal stroke leads to complex changes in the cerebral microcirculation in surviving brain tissues that strongly influence recovery. Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1; encoded by Serpine1) is hi...

New finding from the lab. This surprised us since it went against the common assumption that increasing peri-infarct blood flow is best for stroke recovery. Congrats to Kamal and the team!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Inflammatory molecule found in the blood may underlie the link between diabetes and dementia A study in mice identified the cytokine IL-10 as a key culprit in diabetes-associated vascular damage in the brain and cognitive deficits

MD, author & longevity researcher Peter Attia recently featured a #UVic Medical Sciences-led study published in Nature Metabolism about the link between diabetes and dementia. Read the story:
peterattiamd.com/link-between...
Or the paper: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39496927/#fu...

Repeated naloxone-induced morphine withdrawal alters blood brain barrier and blood spinal cord barrier integrity in mice - Molecular Brain Passage of molecules across the central nervous system is tightly regulated by the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB), which restrict entry of many substances, including op...

Was a pleasure to contribute a little to this new work from Tuan Trang and Yuta Kohro

molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Capillaries susceptible to frequent stall dynamics revealed by comparing OCT and bessel-2PM measurements - Rockwell P Tang, Shannon Kelley, Gülce Küreli, Emily A Long, Piergiulio R Bressan, Shashwat S... Transient stoppages of red blood cell (RBC) flow through capillaries—termed capillary stalls—occur persistently in neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s di...

new paper from Boas group
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Neuroscience grad makes stroke recovery discovery - Faculty of Health - University of Victoria A neuroscience graduate whose research focuses on improving the recovery of stroke survivors has been awarded best master’s thesis at the University of Victoria. Kamal Narayana received the Lieutenant...

Nice little story here about my award winning student Kamal
www.uvic.ca/health/stori...

Main findings: 1) dendritic spines in peri-infarct and ipsilateral motor cortex most disrupted by stroke but generally recover by 6 weeks, 2) ipsilateral S2 and contra lateral S1 show minimal changes despite extensive connections, 3) neurons innervating stroke site survive just fine (see supp fig).

Retrograde and anterograde trans-synaptic viral tracing of neuronal connections reveals local and distant effects of ischemic stroke on dendritic spines - Myrthe Van Sprengel, Jenna Butterworth, Patri... Focal stroke leads to complex neurological disturbances with variable recovery. One explanation for this variability is that stroke disrupts local and remote ne...

Happy to share new paper from MSc grads Myrthe and Jenna. We asked the question, when part of the brain dies during stroke, what happens to local and distant cortical neurons that innervate the stroke site (in S1 cortex) or those that receive outputs? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Excited to share our new study showing that perivascular macrophages promote vascular function in the brain. A greater collaboration with the great Melanie Greter. Huge congratulations to everyone involved! @UZH_en @ImmunityCP

If you are interested in glia, are in Canada (yes, Canadians have glia too), and coming to Toronto for @canacn.bsky.social, then you cannot miss our upcoming CANGlia satellite symposium! Please register and submit an abstract, we’ll see you there! 🥂

Functional and structural profiling of circulation via genetically encoded modular fluorescent probes Sustained labeling of fluids is crucial for their investigation in animal models. Here, we introduce a mouse line (Alb-mSc-ST), where blood and interstitial fluid are labeled with the red fluorescent ...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It’s pretty easy to “apply” for a PhD in Canada, and a little different from most US places, just send a cover letter, CV and undergrad transcript to a PI you’d like to work with. Put some effort into it, make sure you convey what you’re applying for and why.

Glycocalyx dysregulation impairs blood–brain barrier in ageing and disease - Nature Disruption of mucin-domain glycoprotein expression and function in the endothelial glycocalyx are associated with ageing and Alzheimer’s disease, leading to dysregulated blood–brain barrier function.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Loss of endothelial CD2AP causes sex-dependent cerebrovascular dysfunction Vandal et al. performed a biological sex-based study on the role of the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) genetic factor CD2AP in brain blood vessels. Using mouse models and human AD samples, they identified a...

Fantastic new work led by @milenevandal.bsky.social showing that loss of brain endothelial CD2AP in mice alters memory and cerebrovascular function. Interestingly, mutations in CD2AP are known to predispose to Alzheimer’s disease! #cerebrovascular

Very impressive work @silvia-anderle.bsky.social . Figure 7 is brilliant.

APOE4 and sedentary lifestyle synergistically impair neurovascular function in the visual cortex of awake mice Communications Biology - Lifestyle matters for genetic Alzheimer’s disease risk: In vivo imaging of mouse blood vessels and neurons shows that APOE4 reduces neurovascular function most in an...

New paper led by @silvia-anderle.bsky.social

Lifestyle matters for genetic Alzheimer’s disease risk: APOE4 reduces neurovascular function most in an already-stressed system,  when neurons are active and mice do less exercise.

I'll tell you all about it! 🧪 #neuroscience #alzheimers

rdcu.be/d74uh

Brain Barriers Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meetings & Courses -- a private, non-profit institution with research programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, bioinformatics.

This week, we submit abstracts to attend the Brain Barriers 2025 meeting at @cshlaboratory.bsky.social and you should too, submission deadline is January 24th ! meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.asp... This meeting, hosted at a prestigious Institution, is an absolute must for scientists in this field 😇

The pathobiology of neurovascular aging As the population ages, neurovascular pathologies have become leading causes of death and disability. Santisteban and Iadecola review data showing that neurovascular aging not only reduces cerebral blood flow but also impairs protein clearance, immune function, and neurotrophic homeostasis, thereby increasing the risk of stroke, vascular dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.

www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...

Paper is out today @biophysj.bsky.social!

Amyloid beta Aβ1-40 activates Piezo1 channels in 🧠 capillary endothelial cells

Congratulations 🎉 to @xinruilimemily1.bsky.social and Luc Willemse. We enjoyed having Luc in the lab as a visiting student. So proud of Emily and Luc!

doi.org/10.1016/j.bp...

Hypothalamic deep brain stimulation augments walking after spinal cord injury - Nature Medicine Whole-brain anatomical and activity surveys identify the lateral hypothalamus as a key driver of recovery from spinal cord injury, leading to a deep brain stimulation therapy that augments the recover...

First, in rats (PMID: 22654062); then, in primates (PMID: 27830790); and now in humans (again) nature.com/articles/s41...

This is precisely why we need animal research!

Huge congratulations to the authors on this impressive work!

Optogenetic rewiring of thalamocortical circuits to restore function in the stroke injured brain - Nature Communications Stroke recovery requires circuit reorganization and therapeutic efforts have focused on rewiring cortical circuits after stroke, but what about thalamic inputs? Here, the authors examine how thalamoco...

I’ll have to read this carefully but sure, we see pearl on string axons in mouse all the time when imaging in vivo, including healthy cortex. Was that controversial?

www.nature.com/articles/nco...

Hey Soren, Can you add me? we are looking in this direction too!

We also confirm some of your observations in early postnatal development!

Angiogenesis in the mature mouse cortex is governed in a regional- and Notch1-dependent manner The angiogenic capacity of the mature healthy brain and its underlying mechanisms are unclear. Raudales et al. show that rates of cerebral angiogenesis follow regional gradients and are regulated by e...

Congrats to the team! Here we directly image and quantify cerebral #angiogenesis and pruning in vivo. Found interesting regional differences and dependence on #notch signalling. Where you look does matter!

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Do you study 🧠 barriers & neurovasculature? We still have room in this starter pack, reply here if you are not added already.

Want to follow 🤩 scientists studying the BEST cell types & structures in the CNS (ok, besides neurons, glia, etc)? Click the 'Follow All' button in the top right corner. 😉

In Vivo Optical Clearing of Mammalian Brain Established methods for imaging the living mammalian brain have, to date, taken the brain’s optical properties as fixed; we here demonstrate that it is possible to modify the optical properties of the...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Come join us!

can-acn.org/research-ass...

lol. Proofs arrive at 11:24pm on Friday night. You have 48 hours!!

Microscopy Course on iBiology This popular, free online microscopy course begins with basics of optics, proceeds through transmitted light microscopy, and covers many microscopy methods.

Highly recommend these free videos for people new to microscopy

www.ibiology.org/online-biolo...

Thanks, missed this one.

A pathogenic role for IL-10 signalling in capillary stalling and cognitive impairment in type 1 diabetes - Nature Metabolism Interleukin-10 promotes the formation of microcirculatory defects in the brain associated with cognitive impairment in a mouse model of type 1 diabetes.

Re-sharing this for those that didn’t see this on X last week. More new stuff coming soon!

www.nature.com/articles/s42...