Rehana Leak, PhD

The major research foci of the Leak lab include 1) the transmission of proteinopathic stress across neuroanatomical circuitry in Parkinson’s disease and 2) adaptive responses to subtoxic proteinopathic and oxidative stress—a phenomenon known as preconditioning or tolerance. Recent studies in Dr. Leak’s lab have established that α-synucleinopathy can be transmitted from superficial olfactory structures deep into the brain in vivo, consistent with the olfactory vector hypothesis of Parkinson’s disease, and have provided evidence for robust cross-hemispheric preconditioning of the nigrostriatal pathway in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease.