Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

Astrocyte regulation of circadian behavior

Objective

The human brain contains more than 100 billion cells, the majority being non-excitable glial cells, remarkably coordinated by an intrinsic clock that produce a circadian rhythm in their physiology and behavior. Circadian alterations affect human performances, productivity and are associated to increased risk of human-error related accidents and to a variety of brain disorders (e.g. sleep disorders). However, neuropharmacological R&D faces the lack of knowledge on how this clock signaling is hierarchically orchestrated within so many brain cells to lead to the cycle-to-cycle precision of circadian rhythmicity.

Recent studies suggest that astrocytes (the most abundant cells of the brain) actively participate in the modulation of physiological and circadian behavioral processes in invertebrates. Although astrocytes are directly involved in the regulation of synaptic neuronal signaling (“tripartite synapse”), the role of astrocytes in controlling circadian behavior in mammals is largely unknown.

This projects converges an original multidisciplinary research program, spanning the fields of molecular neurobiology, neuroelectronics and circadian biology, to unravel the molecular and functional mechanisms by which neurons and astrocytes cooperate to influence circadian rhythmicity in mammals. To do so, innovative genetics, molecular profiling (deep sequencing), behavioral, imaging and electrophysiological approaches will be used. The results of this proposal will lead to a deeper understanding on circadian rhythms in the brain and to the potential identification of new cellular and signaling targets for neuropharmacology.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA
EU contribution
€ 241 567,60
Address
VIA MOREGO 30
16163 Genova
Italy

See on map

Region
Nord-Ovest Liguria Genova
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data
My booklet 0 0