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The team led by neuroscientist Luísa Lopes, of the João Lobo Antunes Institute of Molecular Medicine, won the Mantero Belard Award for the study of a protein that is at the center of the world. origin of another protein, associated with Alzheimer's disease.
A group coordinated by Nuno Sousa, from the University of Minho, has been awarded the Melo e Castro Award, as part of the project to recover people with vertebromedullary lesions through the use of the IOM. improved use of an exoskeleton (structure developed to facilitate the locomotion of paraplegic persons). ) controlled by brain activity.
Each team receives 200,000 euros.
Considered to be one of the country's most important scientific or clinical research grants in the field of neuroscience, the Santa Casa Neuroscience Awards distinguish between studies of aging-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Parkinson (Mantero Belard Award), as well as work on recovery, treatment or treatment. healing of spinal cord injuries (Melo e Castro Award).
Luísa Lopes, neuroscientist, explained to her team that her team was planning to study the functioning of the amyloid precursor protein (APP), which treats beta-amyloid, a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia.
The idea, he added, is to understand earlier how the APP protein, "essential to neurons" (brain cells) under normal conditions, "undergoes a different treatment" over time.
Justifying the purpose of the study, Luísa Lopes mentioned the high failure rate of treatments for Alzheimer's disease because they affect the beta amyloid protein and that the disease Is already manifested and that the neurons are dying.
The study will be performed in mice and with neuronal samples obtained from cutaneous cells of young and healthy elderly people and sick.
The researcher Nuno Santos, from the University of Minho, told Lusa that the project he is coordinating aims at "supplementing the rehabilitation approaches of patients with vertebromedullary lesions and improving their quality of life. ".
His team will test an exoskeleton – the "fact", as Nuno Santos calls it, which allows patients to "recover some of their motor skills" – in patients with vertebral lesions and followed up in rehabilitation programs in men. Portuguese hospitals. and in Brazil.
Nuno Santos said that the exoskeleton is controlled by the electroencephalographic signs of the patient, to which a "sensory information" – tactile, visual, including virtual reality, and thermals will also be provided.
The exoskeleton is therefore controlled by the activity of the brain whose cells, the neurons, are "excited" by sensory stimuli.
The winners of the 2018 edition of the Santa Casa Neurosciences Awards were selected by a jury chaired by the doctor and Professor Catarina Aguiar Branco, who chairs the Portuguese Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, one of the partner entities of initiative.
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