Séminaire de Salah El Mestikawy

Friday 18th November at 2:30 PM, INT, salle Henri Gastaut

Salah El Mestikawy, The Douglas Research Centre – McGill University, Montreal Canada)
(invited by Christelle Baunez)

Investigations of a rare variant of VGLUT3 (p.T8I) provide a model for a molecular understanding of addiction and eating disorders and opens the doors to specific treatments

Summary:

Cholinergic interneurons are pivotal regulators of striatal function and have the particularity to express both the vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) and the atypical type 3 vesicular glutamate transporter (VGLUT3). We previously identified the missense polymorphism p.T8i (a change from a threonine at position 8 to an isoleucine) in patients with severe addiction or eating disorders. In this study we found: i) that this allele is causative in psychiatric disorders, ii) what are the underlying neurochemical mechanisms and iii) a treatment to alleviate ED in rodent and potentially in humans.

The Douglas Research Centre
https://douglas.research.mcgill.ca/salah-el-mestikawy