Please note change of date for this seminar

This seminar is hosted by the Oxford Stem Cell Institute, an Oxford Martin School Institute

Speaker: Dr Sandrine Thuret, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London

Abstract: Research over the last 10 years has firmly established that learning and memory abilities as well as mood can be influenced by diet. Although the underlying mechanisms by which diet modulates mental health are not well understood. One of the brain structures associated with learning, memory and mood is the hippocampus. Interestingly, the hippocampus is one of the two structures in the adult brain where the formation of newborn neurons - or neurogenesis- persists. The level of neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus has been linked directly to cognition and mood: In the rodent, an increase of neurogenesis in the hippocampus is associated with improved learning/memory abilities, whereas a decrease is associated with symptoms of depression. Therefore modulation of adult hippocampal
neurogenesis by diet emerges as a possible mechanism by which nutrition impacts on mental health.

During this talk Sandrine will first present dietary parameters responsible for adult hippocampal neurogenesis regulation. Next, she will present some recent data on the molecular mechanisms mediating the effects of diet on hippocampal neurogenesis and highlight her work on one of our candidate gene