PhD Student Carlton Wong

Carlton's project is focused on:

Understanding how fats in the brain affect inflammation in people with vascular dementia  

A long-term and stepwise decrease of blood flow in the brain is thought to be a major cause of vascular dementia. When there is less blood flow in the brain, less nutrients are delivered to the brain cells which causes cell damage and in turn triggers inflammation.

Inflammation is the body’s defense system that protects us against damage and infections. But when inflammation continues for a long time, it can become harmful. This can be the case with vascular dementia and so managing brain inflammation, could be key for treating vascular dementia.

Tell us about your project

In my PhD project, I aim to understand how fats in the brain can affect brain inflammation in vascular dementia. To do this, I will replicate reduced blood flow in mouse models to understand: 

1. When and where the inflammation happens in the brain.
2. What kind of fats can affect these inflammation changes.
3. How the fats are impacting the inflammatory changes observed.

The results captured in the mouse model will be compared with similar analyses conducted in postmortem human brain tissue as well as genetic data.

How will this research impact people living with dementia?

Knowing how fats can affect brain inflammation following reduced blood flow, can help us to target fats for managing brain inflammation in vascular dementia. This could then help with developing treatments to slow down and even stop the disease progression of vascular dementia. In other dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease, decreased blood flow in the brain is also common, so these project findings may also be applied to a broader dementia context.

What does it mean to you to be a part of Alzheimer's Society Doctoral Training Centre?

To me, it means that we have a joint responsibility in shaping a better future for people affected by dementia. Not only shall we perform scientific research to improve our understanding of dementia for cure development, but we shall also connect the public with dementia research.  

I think connecting the public with dementia research is especially important, because the supporting community for dementia research can only grow when more people understand and value its importance.