Kristian Doyle
University of Arizona, AZ·Neuroscience
Nearly one-third of people who survive a stroke go on to develop dementia, but why this happens is unclear. The team has shown that stroke sets off a long-lasting inflammatory response that worsens brain injury.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
stroke
vascular cognitive impairment and dementia
neuroinflammation
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Identify the pro-inflammatory lipid species released when myelin and cell membranes break down after stroke, and the inflammatory pathways they trigger in macrophages and microglia.
- Define the individual roles of pro-inflammatory lipid sensors, molecules that detect lipids and switch on inflammation, in driving the chronic inflammatory response that follows stroke.
- Optimize a lipid removal approach within the chronically inflamed stroke region to test whether clearing lipid debris improves recovery and prevents delayed cognitive impairment.
More about the research
In animal models, this inflammation causes delayed memory and thinking problems. They also found that this inflammation closely resembles atherosclerosis, the fatty buildup in arteries. Both feature foam cells (immune cells stuffed with fat), cholesterol crystals, and similar inflammatory signals and tissue-destroying enzymes.
Why it matters
About 15 million people have a stroke each year, and many survivors later develop dementia. If lipid overload in brain immune cells drives post-stroke inflammation, treatments that help these cells clear lipid debris could protect surrounding brain tissue. Such treatments might improve recovery and possibly prevent dementia when strokes hit regions important for thinking and memory.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sarah Elzinga
Michigan State University, MI·Neuroscience·Early-career
Establish how the cGAS/STING pathway, a DNA-sensing innate immune alarm, and the surrounding inflammatory environment change as obesity and prediabetes progress from midlife to later life, and how this tracks with cognitive impairment.
Meredith Hay
University of Arizona, AZ·Pharmacology
Conduct six-month chronic toxicology studies in two animal species to define the safety profile and toxicokinetics (how drug levels change in the body over time) of PNA5, a brain-penetrating Mas receptor-activating peptide, given by injection under the skin.
Dandan Sun
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Neuroscience
Determine how deleting Nhe1, an acid-exporting membrane protein, only in microglia changes phagocytosis-related gene expression and debris clearance after ischemic stroke, using Cx3cr1-CreER;Nhe1 conditional knockout mice.
The school
University of Arizona: 36 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 487 research doctorates a year.
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