Office Contact Info.
Phone: (631) 344-3604
Fax: (631) 344-2358
Mail address: Bldg. 490
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Anat Biegon
Scientist
Telephone: (631) 344-4882
e-mail:
biegon@bnl.gov
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Research Interests
- Brain response to traumatic, ischemic or inflammatory insults
- Sex differences and gonadal hormone modulation of brain function in health
and disease
- Development and validation of radiopharmaceuticals for non invasive
imaging of neurotransmitter and hormone markers in the brain
- Traumatic bran injury is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity
among young (18-24 year old) people in industrialized countries. It is
also a major risk factor for developing Alzheimer's disease later in life.
Brain ischemia (stroke, cardiac arrest, bypass surgery) and inflammation
also increase the risk of developing dementia. For reasons that are not
understood to date; Alzheimer's disease and inflammatory/autoimmune
diseases such as multiple sclerosis are far more common (2-3 fold) in
women than in men. Our recent and current studies focus on the 3-way interaction between
inflammation, glutamate receptor activation and gonadal hormones in
determining the outcome of traumatic, ischemic and inflammatory insults in
animal models and human subjects. The techniques used include quantitative
in vitro and ex vivo autoradiography, CT, structural MRI and functional
MRI. To facilitate further translation of the current animal work to
humans, we are developing radiopharmaceuticals for PET imaging of
glutamate (NMDA) and estrogen receptors in the human brain.
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