Lindsay De Biase has been awarded a 2021 McKnight Brain Research Foundation Innovator Award in Cognitive Aging and Memory Loss. She is one of two scientists who will each receive $750,000 to lead transformative research in the field of cognitive aging.
De Biase is an assistant professor in the departments of physiology and neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Her research interests include the causes and effects of microglial regional specialization within basal ganglia circuits.
The grant will allow De Biase to study whether microglia shape synapse health during aging due to changes in the extracellular matrix — a network of proteins and sugars woven around neurons that regulates synapse stability. Recent studies show that microglia express numerous genes involved in building up and breaking down the extracellular matrix and that they can overwhelm those components.
De Biase will search for links between the microglial and extracellular matrix interactions, synapse stability, and cognitive performance in aging mice and rats. Her overalll goal is to find ways to preserve cognition.
