In her dissertation, entitled “In Vivo Monitoring der Neuroinflammation während einer Immunmodulatorischen Therapie in Mausmodellen der Amyloid Pathologie“, she tested PET monitoring to determine the optimal therapy allocation as well as to evaluate the response to treatment. The first study concerned the drug Pioglitazone – she found that the drug attenuated microglial activation and improved cognitive performance, especially within female mice with high inflammation levels prior to therapy. The second study focused on amyloid – surprisingly, she found that an increase of amyloid during the immunomodulatory treatment was linked to improved cognitive performance. The molecular origin was found to be a rescue of dendritic spine density in the hippocampal cornu ammonis.
Her research suggests that a denser form of amyloid plaques may actually improve cognitive performance by reducing neurotoxicity, therewith protecting brain integrity. Increasing amyloid PET signaling during immunomodulatory therapy can therefore be beneficial.
Her dissertation (in German): https://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/31225/1/Biechele_Gloria.pdf
