Institutes

Institute of Experimental Neurology

Director

Giancarlo Comi

Deputy director

Roberto Furlan

The Institute of Experimental Neurology (INSPE) constitutes one of the major European institutes primarily dedicated to translational research in the neuroscience field. The overall ambition is to conjugate high level of basic research with the specific competences in pre-clinical and clinical research.

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Organization

INSPE includes both research laboratories and the Neurological Department of Ospedale San Raffaele. The INSPE laboratories spans on four different levels in DIBIT2 buildings. View all the research units here.

The first floor is dedicated to neuropathology, experimental neurophysiology, neurogenetics of monogenic and complex diseases. The second floor is dedicated to basic and clinical neuroimmunology, neurobiology, neural stem cell research and neuroembriology. The third floor is focused on neuroimaging of neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative disorders. The fourth floor includes labs on experimental imaging and molecular biology. Other laboratories involved in behavioral research, in signals that regulate myelination, in clinical neurophysiology and in the study of the effects of magnetic stimulation of the brain complete the research area.

Research

Inflammatory and neurodegenerative disorders of the central and peripheral nervous system, stroke, spinal cord nerve and traumatic injures represents the primary targets of the INSPE research. Our goal is to better understand the molecular mechanisms that sustain inflammatory and degenerative pathogenic mechanisms underlying neurological disorders so to identify therapeutic targets, validate in co-operation with pharma companies new treatments, develop new disease biomarkers for both clinical trials and patients monitoring. The molecular and functional bases for central and peripheral nervous system recovery processes and the potential to modulate them by cellular and gene therapy and by specific rehabilitation interventions are another area of interest of INSPE.

The neurological department is deeply involved in the definition of new treatment algorithms for stroke, inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases.

research updates

Scientific publications

Rocca MA, et al., The hippocampus in multiple sclerosis, The Lancet Neurology, 2018, 17(10)
Massimo Filippi, head of Neuroimaging research Unit and full professor at Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, together with Maria A. Rocca, group leader of Neuroimaging of CNS white matter Unit, led a review about the involvement of hippocampus in multiple sclerosis. They emphasizes the importance of evaluation of the hippocampus not only to improve the understanding of clinical manifestation of the disease, but also as a potential future target for treatment.

Filippi M, et al., Changes in functional and structural brain connectome along the Alzheimer's disease continuum, Journal of Molecular Psychiatry, 2018
A group of scientists of Ospedale San Raffaele and Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele guided by Massimo Filippi, head of Neuroimaging research Unit and full professor at Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, investigated structural and functional brain connectome in patients along AD continuum, and assessed the relationship between healthy brain network functional connectivity and the topography of brain atrophy in these patients. These findings support the hypothesis that the topography of brain connectional architecture can modulate the spread of AD through the brain.