Mouse research and neurodegeneration: Mouse research allows us to understand symptoms, such as learning, sleep and cognitive flexibility, which cannot be understood with simpler systems. All animal research is strictly monitored to ensure the welfare of our important scientific contributors (our mice!). We explore how neurons in the cortex change when the protein alpha-synuclein aggregates. This is the same protein that is found in human patients. We also explore how the prefrontal cortex works during behavioral tasks, so that we can better understand what it means when cortical neurons change in anatomy and function during disease.

Keyes AL*, Kim Y*, Bosch PJ, Usachev YM, Aldridge GM. (2021). Stay or Go? Neuronal activity in medial frontal cortex during a voluntary tactile preference task in head-fixed mice. Cell Calcium.

Zhang Q, Abdelmotilib H, Larson T, Keomanivong C, Conlon M, Aldridge G. M., Narayanan N. S. (2021). Cortical alpha-synuclein preformed fibrils do not affect interval timing in mice. Neuroscience Letters. Sep 30;136273  DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2021.136273. PMID: 34601038

Wagner, L. M., Nathwani, S. M., Ten Eyck, P. P., Aldridge, G. M. (2020) Local cortical overexpression of human wild-type alpha-synuclein leads to increased dendritic spine density in mouse. Neuroscience Letters. PMID: 32417387\

Prior research by Dr. Aldridge:

Pan, F*., Aldridge, G.M*., Greenough, W.T., and Gan, W.B. (2010). Dendritic spine instability and insensitivity to modulation by sensory experience in a mouse model of fragile X syndrome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.

Kao, D.I., Aldridge, G.M., Weiler, I.J., and Greenough, W.T. (2010). Altered mRNA transport, docking, and protein translation in neurons lacking fragile X mental retardation protein. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 107, 15601-15606.

Mitchell, A.C., Aldridge, G., Kohler, S., Stanton, G., Sullivan, E., Garbett, K., Faludi, G., Mirnics, K., Cameron, J.L., and Greenough, W. (2010). Molecular correlates of spontaneous activity in non-human primates. J Neural Transm

Grossman, A.W., Aldridge, G.M., Lee, K.J., Zeman, M.K., Jun, C.S., Azam, H.S., Arii, T., Imoto, K., Greenough, W.T., and Rhyu, I.J. (2010). Developmental characteristics of dendritic spines in the dentate gyrus of Fmr1 knockout mice. Brain Res 1355, 221-227.

Aldridge G.M.,* Podrebarac D.M.,*, Greenough W.T., Weiler IJ. (2008) The use of total protein stains as loading controls: an alternative to high-abundance single protein controls in semi-quantitative immunoblotting. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 172:250-254.

Grossman A.W.,*, Aldridge G.M.,*, Weiler IJ., Greenough W.T. (2006) Local protein synthesis and spine morphogenesis: Fragile X syndrome and beyond. J Neurosci 26:7151-7155.