Molecular Neuropharmacology

Responsible: 

Teresa Vilaró Comas

Tenured Scientist

Our research group belongs to the Department of Neurochemistry and Neuropharmacology of the Institute for Biomedical Research of Barcelona (IIBB) of the CSIC and, at the same time, it is part of one of the groups of the Neuropharmacology and Experimental Neuropathology Team of Area 4 (Clinical and Experimental Neurosciences) of the IDIBAPS. For more information, see:
http://www.iibb.csic.es
http://www.idibaps.ub.edu
http://ciberned.es/grupo-mengod.html

The research programs we are developing as a research group include:

• Currently, and within the framework of a collaboration project with Ciberned and other PIs, we are studying the interaction of the cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CBR1) with the glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) as a possible regulatory mechanism of the neuroprotective activity of cannabinoids.

• We have studied the role played by cAMP in the murine model of multiple sclerosis experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Effect of EAE mice treatment with selective cAMP-phosphodiesterase (PDE4 and PDE7) inhibitors on: disease evolution, neuroinflammatoy markers and PDEs expression, cerebral immune cells and brain and spinal cord cell populations, and cAMP signaling cascade.


• Identification and validation of brain therapeutic targets and biomarkers in argyrophilic grain dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. We have observed significant alterations in a series of molecules that we are currently validating by different biochemical, molecular and neuroanatomical techniques in postmortem human brain.


• Serotonin 5-HT4 receptors as a therapeutic target for Alzheimer’s disease. We are currently analyzing the effect of in vivo stimulation of these receptors in the triple transgenic Alzheimer’s disease mouse model on the A? amyloid peptide brain deposition and other neuropathological and behavioral alterations observed in this animal model.