Interviewee: Alesia V. Prakapenka, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences, School of Graduate Research, Midwestern College Authors/Editors: Romina Garcia de leon, Shayda Swann (Weblog Co-coordinators)
Revealed: January 5, 2024
May you inform us extra concerning the work you do in ladies’s well being?
In my lab, we use animal fashions to know how hormones influence mind and behavioral well being inside females and we tackle a lifespan method. We lately had been awarded a grant from the Alzheimer’s Affiliation to research the connection between being pregnant, age, and menopause on wholesome getting old and Alzheimer’s illness development in feminine rodent fashions. We’re very excited to get that work began. Major outcomes embrace each short-term and long-term reminiscence measures, in addition to analysis of reminiscence sorts that interact totally different mind areas, together with hippocampus, frontal cortex, and striatum. We’re additionally keen on anxiety-like and depressive-like behaviors as these are modulated by hormones and are related to Alzheimer’s illness.
How did you turn into concerned on this subject?
I am fascinated by how studying, reminiscence, and the mind works basically. Once I was in highschool, I took a psychology class and one of many items was on the mind. That sparked my curiosity, and I actually wished to be taught extra about what we all know and what we do not know concerning the mind. As an undergraduate, I bought concerned in analysis in a lab that used animal fashions to check studying and reminiscence, and one attention-grabbing side of it was that the lab solely labored with male animals. That bought me considering and looking out extra into the analysis on how studying and reminiscence works in males versus females. To me, it appeared like there was a spot in understanding feminine studying, reminiscence, and mind capabilities in comparison with males. So, for graduate faculty, I pursued analysis that centered particularly on feminine studying and reminiscence with my co-mentors, Drs. Heather Bimonte-Nelson and Rachael Sirianni. Particularly, I labored on growing methods to focus on the supply of hormones, comparable to estrogens, to the mind to optimize their cognitive results in females. My graduate analysis led to many extra questions than solutions relating to hormones and feminine well being, which I’m excited to proceed to analysis.
What does a typical day in your subject appear like?
If we’re working with the animals, the timelines are deliberate out months upfront. With this new undertaking being pregnant and Alzheimer’s illness, for instance, we’ve a schedule set for 2-3 years as a result of we’re working with animals all through their lifespan. Some days, we’re administering remedies, checking in on the well being of animals, or testing habits and reminiscence duties. After which different days we’re attending to work with the tissue – course of it, tag it with antibodies, after which visualize it. After which different days we’re on a pc heaps and many spreadsheets, analyzing the information and placing it collectively to know and share what we discover.
Are there any attention-grabbing findings out of your work that you just’d like to focus on?
My lab is in its second yr, so our information assortment is at present very contemporary and ongoing. For instance, as we set up our habits duties and protocols within the lab, we’re discovering that dose-dependent results of 17beta-estradiol on spontaneous alternation behaviors are modulated by particular process parameters in feminine rats. And though we don’t but have findings from our lab for our lately funded work, I’d love to focus on priceless findings from different labs’ within the subject that knowledgeable and sparked this analysis path. There are a number of findings, for instance, exhibiting that being pregnant is neuroprotective and helpful for feminine mind well being. There’s additionally some proof to counsel that being pregnant may be related to elevated Alzheimer’s illness threat. So, we goal to research components, comparable to age and menopause sort, which will assist clarify the disparate results of being pregnant on wholesome getting old and Alzheimer’s illness pathogenesis.
What influence do you hope to see along with your work?
The influence I hope to see with my work is rooted in scholar mentorship. Majority of scholars that I work with are both on a pre-healthcare profession path or of their first or second yr of medical or dental faculty. My method is to mentor college students, most of whom might be future healthcare professionals and inevitably working with the feminine inhabitants, to understand the complexity of feminine well being and embrace it. I hope to assist them perceive the analysis on feminine well being, critically analyze it, and respect it in order that when they’re forming that medical plan for a person, they are often snug addressing female-specific well being points.
Look out for Dr. Prakapenka’s upcoming work funded by the Alzheimer’s Affiliation, by the Intercourse and Gender in Alzheimer’s Award, titled ‘Alzheimer’s illness pathogenesis in moms: a task for age and menopause’.