NeuroVasCog Group is a multidisciplinary research team dedicated to understanding how brain vascular function and energy metabolism interact with neuronal circuits during aging and neurodegeneration, with a particular focus on the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Our work seeks to uncover the vascular and metabolic alterations that precede cognitive decline and to define how these processes interact with amyloid-β and tau pathology over time.

A central pillar of the group is the investigation of biological sex and hormonal aging as critical modifiers of neurovascular, metabolic, and pathological trajectories—an area of growing clinical importance that remains insufficiently explored. By integrating advanced in vivo optical imaging approaches, including two-photon microscopy, laser speckle imaging, and optogenetics, with molecular and cellular biology techniques, we interrogate brain hemodynamics, oxygen delivery, and microvascular integrity at high spatiotemporal resolution.

Our research emphasizes therapeutic discovery and translation, identifying vascular and metabolic biomarkers and evaluating repurposed candidate drugs aimed at preserving microvascular function and enhancing brain oxygenation. Although our primary studies are conducted in animal models, the group’s work is strongly informed by clinical insight, enabling a bidirectional bridge between basic mechanisms and human disease relevance. Through an integrative neurovascular, metabolic, and sex-aware framework, NeuroVasCog aims to advance early diagnosis, intervention strategies, and biomarker development for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Coordinator: Eugenio Gutierrez