Meredith D. Hartley

Hartley Research Group Poster

Myelination in the central nervous system

The research in the Hartley laboratory focuses on myelin, which is the protective insulation that wraps around neurons and acts as an insulator to increase the efficiency of neuronal signaling. Myelin is critical for a healthy central nervous system, and damage to myelin (or demyelination) occurs in neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease. Our laboratory studies how the central nervous system (CNS) repairs myelin after damage with the goal of identifying new pathways that could be targeted for therapeutic development. We have two main areas of interest within this field: (1) lipids are a major component of myelin and our goal is to define how lipids are regulated during myelin damage and repair, and (2) thyroid hormone and estrogen can induce remyelination and our goal is to identify specific pathways that mediate the hormone action during remyelination.