Turning Brain Insights into Therapeutic Innovations
Translational Neurometrics is a new contract research organization (CRO) focused on preclinical neuroscience. By blending advanced in vivo neurotechnology, distilled knowledge of the neural basis of brain functions, and a history of effective collaborations, we unravel the actions of potential therapies in the brain through targeted translational studies.
Our approach
Neuronal Recordings in vivo
The electrical activity of neurons in the intact brain opens a window into the intricate brain workings behind motivation, emotion, and cognition. We translate these insights
into innovative therapies.
Neural decoding
AI-approaches are integral to our data analysis, enabling discovery of treatment effects and their precise quantification. We ensure rigorous data analysis through a blind study design and data shuffling, maximizing our potential for discoveries.
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Combining in vivo recordings
with genetic methods
Whether mouse genetic, pharmacogenetic or optogenetic models, our pioneering experience in integrating these approaches with sophisticated in vivo neural recordings
makes us one of the best equipped to tackle challenges in this new frontier of restoring brain function.
Neurometrics
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Brain function and disorders
Metabolic and endocrine signals of reduced energy substrates in blood or adipose
tissue induce hunger. In obesity, low efficacy of this bodily feedback to the brain
leads to increased appetite regardless of the status of energy stores.
Brain region
The hypothalamus senses various bodily signals and translates them into
motivational drives, including hunger, to ensure the survival of the organism.
Damage, genetic defects or manipulations in the arcuate nucleus of the
hypothalamus or its output neural pathways lead to hyperphagia and obesity in
humans and rodents.
Neurometric
The hypothalamus contains appetite-stimulating and appetite-reducing neurons.
These neurons change their activity in response to the adipose tissue
hormone leptin, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) or its receptor agonists. GLP-1 agonists
reduce body weight to a large extent by changing the firing of appetite-regulating neurons.
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Methodology
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Neuronal recordings from the arcuate and dorsomedial nuclei in mice in a free-feeding model
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Systemic administration
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Classification of recorded neurons based on their responses to food, analysis
of firing rate in appetite-stimulating and appetite-reducing neurons
(Extended assessment)
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Neuronal recordings in the lateral hypothalamus, which is responsible for the
control of feeding bouts duration
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Systemic administration
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Analysis of neuronal activity within feeding bouts
Timeline: 24 (36) weeks
Appetite
Appetite
Aggression
Episodic memory
Fear
Sleep
Mood
Cognitive control
Cognitive Maps
Expertise
Our company is backed by decades of experience in systems neuroscience research. Using sophisticated techniques for monitoring, manipulating, and analyzing neural activity and behavior, we have made significant contributions to understanding brain functions ranging from memory to feeding. Collaborations across institutions and countries have catalyzed new research directions, enriched teams' capabilities, and advanced the field. We foster this collaborative spirit in our new alliances.
Vision
We live in an era when life-changing cures for devastating diseases are emerging faster than ever before. A great quantity-to-quality transformation of the amount of research into people’s benefit. Neuroscience has been a leading research area in recent decades, and we have learned a great deal about how brain cells create perceptions, emotions, motivations, cognition, and movement.
Responsibility
​At Translational Neurometrics, we uphold the highest ethical and scientific standards in our preclinical research. We ensure high welfare standards for our subjects, adhere to rigorous methodologies for reliable results, and prioritize data privacy and security to protect all collected data. These practices ensure the highest quality of research and safeguard the interests of all our clients.
About Us
Services
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How does Translational Neurometrics data support the translational research process?Translational Neurometrics supports translational research by providing data on how new compounds and established drugs affect fundamental neuronal mechanisms that underpin key brain functions. These mechanisms are highly conserved across species, which ensures the relevance and applicability of the findings to humans. This cross-species consistency allows for neural mechanism-based predictions about how compounds will perform in clinical settings.
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What are Neurometrics?We define neurometrics as well-established measures of the activity of multiple individual neurons during free behavior, providing insights into specific brain functions such as hunger and memory. These measures have been consistently validated across various laboratories and species, underscoring their reliability—a fact highlighted by Nobel and Brain Prizes awarded to their discoverers. Importantly, several neurometrics also describe established mechanisms of action for currently used pharmacological treatments. An example of a neurometric is provided above, and we invite you to contact us to explore other neurometrics relevant to your research areas.
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How do you manage complex datasets to provide clients with actionable insights that are clear, understandable, and applicable?Our workflows combine automatic data processing by custom codes with human expertise to ensure accuracy and reliability. Crucial steps, such as data quality control, algorithm design and validation, and results interpretation, are managed by our experts, while automated processes handle large datasets to ensure robustness. Actionable insights rest on clear analytical hypotheses and their rigorous statistical testing, supported by decades of our research in systems neuroscience.
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What kind of studies or projects benefit most from your services?Neuronal-level analysis can be helpful both at very early and advanced stages of drug discovery and development. Target validation: The validity of a new molecular entity as a potential drug target implies that perturbing the target influences neuronal interactions that underpin the function affected by the disorder. Identification of drug candidates: Evaluating how a candidate affects the neuronal mechanism of the function in question completes the body of preclinical translational data. Pharmacodynamics: Knowledge of the precise neuronal network mechanism of action of the drug helps explain its already established clinical efficacy and may point to new areas of application.
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What makes your approach different from other in vivo functional brain assays?Other functional in vivo assays, such as evoked potentials, electroencephalography, ultrasound imaging, or fMRI, measure signals arising from or influenced by the activity of many neurons. However, the responses of individual neurons that underpin brain functions affected by neuropsychiatric diseases remain inaccessible through these methods. Our approach enables the recording of output signals from multiple individual neurons during unrestrained behavior. With its unmatched temporal resolution and minimal invasiveness, this technique forms the foundation of the current mechanistic and translational understanding of brain function.
