Circadian Clock in Brain Health and Disease

Olivia Engmann obtained her PhD in Neuroscience from King’s College London. Her main interest lies in the molecular basis of mental illness. To that end she has worked in laboratories of leading experts in this field in Paris and New York. She recently moved back to Germany to study the biological basis of depression. Dr. Engmann is currently teaching Neuro-epigenetics, Human genetics and Biology at the University of Jena. Marco Brancaccio received his PhD degree in Neuroscience from SISSA in Trieste, Italy in 2010. He then joined Michael Hastings-group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, where he studied the molecular and circuit mechanisms underlying circadian function in the brain master clock in mammals (the suprachiasmatic nucleus-SCN). He then moved to Imperial College London in 2018, as a Lecturer and a Programme Leader of the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK-DRI) where he leads his research group focusing on the mechanisms driving circadian dysregulation in the early stages of dementia and the exploitation of circadian function for the prevention and cure of neurodegenerative conditions.

PART I. Molecular Gears of the Circadian Clock.- Introduction to the Clock System.- Circadian Clocks, Sleep, and Metabolism.- Linking Depression to Epigenetics: Role of the Circadian Clock.- PART II. Brain Regions Implicated in Circadian Rhythms.- The Brain's Reward System in Health and Disease.- Brain Clocks, Sleep and Mood.- Astrocyte Circadian Timekeeping in Brain Health and Neurodegeneration.- PART III. Clock and Mental Illness.- The Role of the Circadian System in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.- How Psychoactive Drugs and the Circadian Clock Are Enlightening One Another.- Circadian Rhythms in Mood Disorders.- The Reciprocal Interaction Between Sleep and Alzheimer's Disease.