In this week’s episode of the 80208 podcast, one of our team-members sits down with Dr. Lotta Granholm-Bentley, the University of Denver’s executive director for the Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging. Granholm-Bentley has been at DU for three years. Prior to coming here, Granholm-Bentley studied neuroscience in Stockholm as a graduate student. Then she went to CU Anschutz and most recently, she directed the Center on Aging at the Medical University of South Carolina.
Granholm-Bentley has been interested in studying the neuroscience of Down syndrome since the ’90s. Eighty percent of people with Down syndrome get Alzheimer’s, and we still don’t know why. Granholm-Bentley is the principal investigator for a network of sites researching this topic in order to help people with Down syndrome live healthy lives. There are 10 other sites in the United States and three sites in Europe. Even though Down syndrome is not a rare condition, it is rare enough that these research sites have to group together in order to get enough brain tissue to research. Here at DU, they have developed a device called a “brain jig” that makes the process of comparing donated brain tissue much easier. The brain jig helps locate specific areas of the brain from the 13 partial samples the network share. One of DU’s site’s role is to make 3D-printed brain jigs for all of the research sites in the network. Their end goal is to use the brain jig to compare the specific parts of the brain from different donations, so they can find a reason why people with Down syndrome develop Alzheimer’s later on in life. If they accomplish their goal, the brain jigs will then be used to find treatment methods.
Another project in the works at the Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging is “The Concussion Study at DU.” The focus of this project is to see if repeated concussions cause the development of Alzheimer’s biomarkers in the blood, and if so, what are the solutions to combat this? This is a project in which many students get involved. There are now more than four hundred DU students involved in this study. Many student-athletes get involved during first-year preliminary testing. If they happen to get a concussion over their time at DU, then more testing is conducted to see the effects. Granholm-Bentley hopes to expand the project in the future. She’d like to study adults, possibly DU alumni who are or were athletes.
Contributions:
- Special guest – Dr. Lotta Granholm-Bentley
- Host – Victoria Valenzuela
- Writer – Julie Tran
- Producer – Julie Tran of 80208
- Publisher – 80208
- Distributor – The DU Clarion
- Background music – “Snow Butterflies In Our Warm Attic” by Artifical.Music
- Music promotion – Free Stock Music
