LABORATORY OF NEUROPLASTICITY

DSF UPO

The "more than neurons" approach

Neurological and psychiatric disorders have long been perceived as the exclusive consequence of abnormalities in the most prominently affected cell type, the neurons.

Increasing knowledge on Neural Stem Cells and glial cells, their key functions in brain plasticity, as well as exciting findings of abnormalities for these cells in CNS diseases, strongly raise the need for a less “neuron-centric” view of brain disorders.

Our perspective is that pharmacological strategies aimed at correcting not only neuronal, but also non-neuronal cell states and their dysfunctional performance, may open novel venues for currently undertreated brain disorders.