alzheimer’s Research Focuses on Brain Energy Failures

Virginia Tech scientists are probing how mitochondrial stress and calcium overload may cause alzheimer’s to strike memory circuits first, offering clues to the disease’s earliest breakdown.

One of the first parts of the brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease is the entorhinal cortex – a region that plays a big role in memory, spatial navigation, and the brain’s internal mapping system.

With support from the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Research Award Fund (ARDRAF),Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC scientists Sharon Swanger and Shannon Farris are working to understand why this area is especially vulnerable.

Bridging Synapses and Mitochondria

Swanger studies how brain cells communicate across synapses in disease-susceptible brain circuits, while Farris focuses on how different circuits in the brain’s memory center function at the molecular level. Their overlapping expertise made the collaboration a natural fit.

“We’ve both been studying how circuits differ at the molecular level for a while,” said Swanger, an assistant professor at the research institute. “This new collaborative project brings together my work on synapses and Shannon’s on mitochondria in a way that addresses a big gap in the Alzheimer’s disease field.”

“This kind of state-level support is critical,” Farris said. “It gives researchers in Virginia the chance to ask questions that may eventually make a difference for people living with Alzheimer’s.It’s meaningful to be part of research that could help people facing that journey.”