[whirring]
my name is Elizabeth Hillman and my research involves developing new imaging
methods microscopy methods and optical techniques using lasers and light to
image the living brain and to understand the way that the brain functions and the
way that the brain regulates its blood flow. We took a very high-speed camera
images of the blood vessels on the surface of the brain and when we did a
stimulus we were able to actually watch the blood vessels dilate really really
high speeds and when we did that we saw this sort of spreading of the dilation
of those vessels and that's something that people hadn't really seen before
because no one had imaged as fast as we managed to image what we found is
basically that there's this layer of cells on the inside of blood vessels
called the endothelium which nobody had really looked at in great detail in the
brain before but we found that it's capable of actually sending signals
propagating signals and that this propagation of signals is a really
important component of increasing blood flow in the brain so this gives us new
insight into how this blood flow regulation is is working at a sort of
mechanistic level it's also really important because nobody thought that
this process was taking place in the brain even though it's known to take
place everywhere else in the body and this provides a new link to other
diseases in the rest of the body that we know affect these endothelial cells but
nobody's really thought about the possibility that they tie into the brain
the reason why so many people are interested in this blood flow response
is because it's the basis of the signal that you measure there in functional MRI
and so functional MRI is this technique that you can use to image the brains of
humans and we'll give you these beautiful maps where you see this big
bright red blob that says right this is where the activation is happening what
that MRI machine is actually measuring a change in the amount of deoxyhemoglobin
the brain so it actually measures a change in the blood not in the neurons
and people have been struggling for years to understand well what does it
mean when that region is is bigger or smaller or faster or slower and we
haven't had any way to really understand what that means in terms of the neurons
and so our new finding can allow us to explain better why the blood flow
responses look the way that they do just from the sake of brain health it
has to be important that the brain regulates its blood flow properly you
know if it doesn't do that even in the short term you might not be able to
respond as quickly you might not be able to think straight effectively right when
you're really hungry you can't think straight right but longer-term if your
neurons aren't getting what they need every time they need it you're going to
start to get neuro degeneration and and you know we have a population of elderly
people who are getting dementia and Alzheimer's and a lot of diseases which
now people are realizing more and more might involve the vasculature and I
think it's just an oversight not to look at it and think of it as a really
important part of the way the brain works so really the main theme of my
work right now is that blood flow regulation in the brain is really
important for brain health and it might be more common than we think that this
regulation gets damaged in some way so we think this is a way to better
understand the sort of neural consequences of systemic diseases things
like cardiovascular disease and diabetes and maybe point to maybe points to new
ways in which those disorders could be treated so I'm very excited to be
involved with the new Zuckerman Institute for mind brain. it's going to
be a fabulous environment that brings together really multidisciplinary
investigators I'm excited to bring my optical imaging tools because I think
that they're going to be really valuable in all different areas of neuroscience
and it's gonna be great to be able to you know set them up and invite people
in and help them to develop them for all sorts of different purposes