Senior Lecturer
Dr Christoper Morris’ research looks at why people with different neurological disorders experience different psychiatric symptoms and how we might successfully treat these symptoms. For example, people experiencing Dementia with Lewy Bodies have much higher rates of depression and visual hallucinations than people with Alzheimer's, and the basis of this is unclear. To explore this, we use brain tissue from well characterised individuals who have donated to our tissue bank. We use quantitative microscopy methods to determine if specific cellular changes or pathology underpins symptoms. Analytical methods including transcriptomics, genetics and biochemical techniques allow us to build an understanding of how symptoms might evolve in these disorders, and how targeted treatments might be of benefit.
As part of our studies, we are developing patient specific stem cell models of the different disorders that are found in older populations. Using our brain bank we have developed highly characterised cell lines from older normal donors and also Dementia with Lewy Bodies, Alzheimer's disease donors. These cell lines are derived from donors entering the Newcastle Brain Tissue Resource through the Brains for Dementia Research initiative (https://bdr.alzheimersresearchuk.org/researchers/what-bdr-offers/stem-cells/ ) and provide an accessible iPSC model for use by the research community.