Welcome to the Villeneuve Lab
The Villeneuve Lab is interested in how the brain ages, with a specific focus on factors that modify the association between brain lesions and cognitive performance. Our research is motivated by the fact that more than 25% of older adults are considered cognitively normal despite the presence of beta-amyloid in their brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. This fact suggests that other factors interact with beta-amyloid to trigger cognitive deficits in Alzheimer’s disease. It also suggests that actions can be taken to prevent or postpone disease-related symptoms. The main focus of the Villeneuve Lab’s research is therefore to examine the factors that protect against, or worsen, the development of cognitive deficits in age-related neurodegenerative diseases.
We use a multi-tier approach that includes molecular PET imaging, MRI imaging, neuropsychological testing and genetics, combined with analytic tools such as deep learning, lasso regression and partial least squares regression.
Visit our research page to learn more about our ongoing projects.
We work in close collaboration with the StoP-AD Centre, which is also directed by Dr. Sylvia Villeneuve.
Recent News
| Human Amyloid Imaging conference January 2025 Dr. Sylvia Villeneuve and lab members Dr. Alexandre Pastor-Bernier, Alfonso Fajardo-Valdez, Jonathan Gallego Rudolf, Mohammadali Javanray, Ting Qiu, and Yara Yakoub attended the Human Amyloid Imaging (HAI) conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Dr. Villeneuve chaired a discussion session, while Alfonso, Jonathan, Mohammadali, Ting, and Yara gave poster presentations of their latest research. Ting and Yara also gave lightning talks about their work. Congratulations to Ting and Yara on receiving HAI travel fellowships. Thanks to everyone for an excellent conference! [Presentations] [Photos] |
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| Dr. Villeneuve receives grant from the Weston Family Foundation October 2024 Dr. Villeneuve was a awarded a “Brain Health: Sleep 2023” grant, funded by the Weston Family Foundation. This funding will allow Dr. Villeneuve and her team to investigate associations between sleep quality and the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), as well as to test whether a drug originally developed to treat insomnia can prevent the accumulation of AD pathology. |
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| McGill IPN Retreat September 2024 At the annual retreat of the Integrated Program in Neuroscience at McGill University, Ting Qiu and Jonathan Gallego Rudolf co-chaired the symposium “Multimodal neuroimaging biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease” and each gave a talk, and Alfonso Fajardo-Valdez presented a poster. [Photos] [Presentations] |
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| New article from the Villeneuve lab September 2024 Jonathan Gallego-Rudolf’s article “Synergistic association of Aβ and tau pathology with cortical neurophysiology and cognitive decline in asymptomatic older adults” has been published in Nature Neuroscience. Our study shows that early deposition of Aβ and tau proteins in the brain synergistically affect neural activity in asymptomatic older adults at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. We show that Aβ deposition parallels an enhancement of fast-frequency neurophysiological activity, while tau deposition promotes a shift towards neurophysiological activity slowing, related to cognitive decline. This evidence supports a long-standing hypothesis that Aβ and tau differentially affect neural activity in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, previously only shown in animal or computational models. Check out the full publication. [Papers] [Media and Press] |
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| More lab news here. |
