The Ishii Laboratory at Weill Cornell Medical College is interested in understanding the bidirectional relationship between brain function and systemic metabolism with an emphasis on metabolic deficits in Alzheimer’s disease and how it differs from normal aging. Our laboratory collects findings from molecular genetics and neuroscience techniques in the research laboratory, with the goal to verify these findings in human research studies. 

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly and remains a devastating disease with currently no cure or effective therapies.  The exact pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease is still unclear, but a leading hypothesis is that the abnormal accumulation of amyloid-beta peptides leads to the dementia.  While deficits in cognition and memory are the major clinical manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease, accelerated early body weight loss often occurs prior to the mental decline.  Furthermore, weight loss is correlated with worsening disease progression and increased risk of death in Alzheimer’s disease.  Therefore, brain circuits regulating body weight may be altered early in Alzheimer’s disease and could be intrinsic to the disease process. Our laboratory is interested in identifying the central and peripheral pathways regulating body weight and systemic metabolism that are altered early in Alzheimer’s disease.