Gwenaëlle Catheline lauréate du prix Desmarest

Congratulations to Gwenaëlle Catheline, head of the SWAN team at INCIA, teacher-researcher and director of studies at EPHE-PSL, who has been awarded the Prix Desmarest by the Fondation Deniker.

Project:

« Sleep Wake cycle in Aging and Arachnoid Granulations »

Human neuroimaging studies of the last decades have revealed that the accumulation of metabolic waste in the brain begins around the age of 50, is highly heterogeneous from one subject to another and could be at the root of neurodegenerative diseases. Sleep/wake cycle quality during this critical period could be major determinants of this heterogeneity. Importantly, there is mounting evidence that waste clearance of the brain follows a sleep/wake cycle. Sleep/wake cycle disturbances in early old age could be associated with a disruption in the brain’s clearance system, leading to an accumulation of waste products such as amyloid and tau proteins, thereby increasing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Using innovative MRI sequences coupled with deep learning post-processing methods, 3 recently described MRI markers for estimating the integrity of the brain’s clearance system will be examined: arachnoid granulations in the dural parasagittal space, the coupling of CSF-BOLD oscillations and the integrity of the blood-brain barrier. This comprehensive assessment will be analysed in relation to sleep/wake cycle disturbances objectively assessed in the context of daily life using actimetry within a unique cohort (Bcube, 500 volunteers of 55 years old) designed to capture the early stages of the brain ageing continuum. More specifically, we hypothesise that a disturbed sleep/wake cycle in early older age may be associated with an enlargement of arachnoid granulations of the parasagittal dural space revealing a modified neuroimmune activity at this critical period.

More details about the Desmarest Prize