Research
Interests
The control of cerebral blood flow by ion channels and calcium signaling in the pericytes, endothelial cells, and smooth muscle cells that constitute the brain microcirculation. We use this information to combat brain diseases with a vascular component.
Description
The overall goal of our research is to understand the control of cerebral blood flow in physiological and cerebrovascular disease conditions, with a special interest in the interaction between neuronal activity and the brain microvasculature composed of arterioles, capillaries, and venules. We investigate how the brain maintains a constant perfusion over a wide range of blood pressure (cerebral autoregulation) and how local blood flow increases in response to enhanced neuronal activity
(functional hyperemia).
Our studies focus on the dynamic regulation of the microvasculature diameter by ion channels, providing some of the first measurements of membrane potential, calcium signaling, and diameter imaging of mouse pressurized microvessels.
Developing these approaches was a tour de force that now allows us to use genetic models to investigate potential treatments for cerebrovascular diseases. These accomplishments led to several article highlights and awards.
The emerging view from our work is that fundamental alterations in extracellular matrix proteins disrupt the ion channel repertoire controlling vascular reactivity and subsequently cerebral hemodynamics, at a very early stage. In our more recent work on neurovascular coupling, the mechanism sustaining functional hyperemia, we established brain capillaries as an active sensory web detecting neural activity and communicating it to upstream arterioles in the form of vasodilatory signals to match local metabolic demands. Currently, our federally funded work is aimed at understanding the disruption of neurovascular coupling in disorders involving extracellular matrix alterations to shed light on vascular dementia.
Team
Dabertrand Laboratory | Department of Anesthesiology | University of Colorado