Dr Katie Hall PhD

Interests

I am principally interested in the field of behavioural neurosciences with a particular focus in understanding how neurodegenerative pathologies cause dementia symptoms and behavioural dysfunction, as well as developing potential neuroprotective therapies for such disorders.

In 2013 I joined Professor Maria Grazia Spillantini’s group, where I characterised a novel model of dementia with Lewy Bodies, which showed forebrain expression of human truncated alpha-synuclein and associated progressive behavioural deficits. I have since joined the lab of Professor Roger Barker in 2014, where my research has focused on therapeutic development and assessing cognitive dysfunction in mouse models of Huntington’s disease. I am currently examining viral vector mediated delivery of GDNF into the striatum of R6/1 and R6/2 mice, as well as the therapeutic potential of RVG9R-p137. Further to this, I am currently working to develop a new rat model of Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD).

Research Focus

Keywords Protein aggregation Neurodegeneration Alpha synuclein Dementia Behavioural

Clinical conditions Alzheimer's disease Cognitive impairment Dementia Huntington's disease Parkinson's disease

Equipment

Animal models

Behavioural analysis

Confocal microscopy

Enzyme assays

Fluorescence microscopy

Immunohistochemistry

Microscopy

PhD supervision

Protein purification

Statistics

Stereotaxic surgery

Teaching