Prof. Pablo Blinder

Prof. Blinder leads a multidisciplinary laboratory, where he develops and implements advanced in vivo imaging tools to uncover the nature of neurovascular coupling, under healthy and pathological conditions. This reflects his deep devotion to understand the inner workings in the brain and the path he took, which started with undergraduate and graduate studies in biology that took place at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, followed by a joint PhD in Neuroscience with a tutor in Physics (Ben Gurion University and Tel Aviv University) and a post-doctoral training at the Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego. He has made several fundamental contributions to the understanding of brain vascular structure and function and more recently contributed to deepening our understanding of novel aspects of the neuro-immune axis in metastases and stroke.

Maintaining life-long memories through preservation of Peri-Neuronal Nets (PNN). Perineuronal nets, are formed by the most stable proteins know, anchoring the location of synapses around key inhibitory neurons while also protecting them from oxidative stress and damage. It is believed that these combined functions enable the storage of life-long memories. PNN are lost during ageing and their preservation opens a new window of opportunity for healthy cognitive ageing. To this day, the study of this peculiar structure was limited to histological and ex vivo experiments which limited our understanding of their function and interactions with other cells in the brain Blinder’s laboratory developed a novel method to longitudinally label and image PNNs. They now combine this approach with the ability to modulate the neuroimmune axis in order uncover the mechanism beyond the formation, maintenance and degradation of PNNs, opening a new horizon of research into neuronal longevity and preservation of cognitive.