Ahmed Abdelmoneim
Louisiana State University, LA·Neuroscience
Anxiety and depression affect at least a quarter of the world's population. Both are rooted in disruptions of the brain's stress circuitry.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
lead exposure
Pb
developmental neurotoxicity
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Test whether lead-induced disruption of noradrenergic (noradrenaline-based) signaling causes altered stress responses in developing zebrafish, using genetic and pharmacological modulation of this signaling.
- Reveal structural and functional changes in locus coeruleus noradrenergic neurons, the stress system's main regulator, after early lead exposure, using transgenic zebrafish and in vivo brain imaging.
- Determine how early lead exposure alters the sensitivity of locus coeruleus neurons to later stressors, and whether lead accumulates within these neurons.
More about the research
Genes do not fully explain who develops them, so the environment likely contributes. Lead (Pb) exposure during development affects about a third of children worldwide and is linked to stress-related behavior problems. Still, how lead changes the stress response is poorly understood. This project asks whether early lead exposure disturbs noradrenergic signaling, a brain system that uses the chemical messenger noradrenaline to drive the stress response.
Why it matters
Stress-related psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression affect a quarter of people worldwide, and environmental contaminants are an underexplored risk factor. Showing how childhood lead exposure alters the brain's stress-regulating neurons could point to more targeted treatments. It could also guide strategies to reduce harm from lead exposure, which affects about a third of children worldwide.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
David Weinshenker
Emory University, GA·Neuroscience
Determine how neuromelanin, a pigment in norepinephrine neurons, affects locus coeruleus survival in mice, using a viral vector expressing human tyrosinase (hTyr) to make these neurons produce neuromelanin.
Samuel McKenzie
University of New Mexico, NM·Neuroscience
Test whether locus coeruleus activity, the brain's main source of norepinephrine, drives remapping (resetting) of hippocampal activity patterns after unexpected sensory changes, using electrophysiology and optogenetics in behaving mice.
Qi Wang
Columbia University, NY·Neuroscience
Determine whether long-term chemogenetic stimulation of the locus coeruleus, the brain's main norepinephrine source, delays memory decline and improves synaptic plasticity in amyloid and tau mouse models of Alzheimer's disease.
The school
Louisiana State University: 15 labs on PI Pages, $431M a year on research, 323 research doctorates a year.
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