NICO-Webinar: "Potential of early pharmacotherapies for the improvement of intellectual disability in Down syndrome: lesson from the Ts65Dn mouse model" 24/3/23 @ 14.00
Friday 24/3/23 h. 2:00 pm
Fiorenza Stagni, Università degli Studi di Bologna
Potential of early pharmacotherapies for the improvement of intellectual disability in Down syndrome: lesson from the Ts65Dn mouse model
Down syndrome (DS) is a relatively high-incidence genetic condition caused by the triplication of chromosome 21. Gene triplication may compromise different body functions but intellectual disability represents the unavoidable hallmark and the most invalidating aspect of this pathology. Intellectual disability is mainly attributable to neurogenesis and dendritogenesis alterations that can be traced back to fetal life stages. Although the progressive improvement in medical care has led to a notable increase in life expectancy for people with DS, there are currently no effective therapies for intellectual disability in DS. Since neurodevelopmental defects are present starting from fetal life stages, early pharmacological interventions are likely to represent a good strategy to improve brain development in DS. With this idea in mind, our research group has examined the efficacy of different pharmacotherapies administered during the prenatal or early postnatal period in the Ts65Dn mouse, a model that recapitulates many anatomical and functional alterations of DS.This talk will describe and discuss the most suitable time windows for treatment and some of the attempted pharmacotherapies targeted to pathways that are known to be deranged in DS, that have proved to be effective in restoring trisomy-linked neurodevelopmental defects and cognitive performance in the Ts65Dn mouse model.In view of the good translational impact of some of these tested therapies, our preclinical findings may open the way for clinical trials in individuals with DS, thereby improving their life conditions.
Host: Francesca Montarolo | webex link