This page aims at featuring our early careers researchers. Please feel free to browse through their pages. They all answered several questions regarding their career path and interests.
Daniel Ohm, PhD
Position: Research Associate
University of Pennsylvania
Neuropathology, neuroanatomy, cytoarchitecture, selective vulnerability, neurodegeneration, clinicoanatomical correlations
📧 [email protected]
What is your area of research as it relates to FTD?
I’m a translational neuroscientist with research that aims to identify the most vulnerable brain regions and neuronal pathways that underlie the behavioral and cognitive impairments characteristic of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and related disorders. I use a neuroanatomical framework and develop new high-throughput postmortem approaches to quantify changes to the arrangement and quantity of neurons and axons (cytoarchitecture and myeloarchitecture) in a concerted effort to find disease-specific patterns of microscopic degeneration. I plan to connect these microscopic changes to macroscopic networks, cognitive decline, and in vivo biomarkers in the FTD spectrum.
What inspired you to do FTD research?
I’m deeply interested in the neuroanatomy of human behavior and how it is altered by pathologic and/or aging processes in neurodegenerative disorders including FTD. FTD often robs people of their language, behavior, and personality, so I hope I can contribute new understanding to the disease processes in FTD to improve diagnostics and efficacious interventions.
What challenges have you faced in FTD research?
Given that FTD disorders and the proteinopathies that cause them are relatively rare, it can be difficult to collect and study large enough cohorts of human postmortem brain tissue to generalize findings. With increased advocacy of brain donation and more domestic and international collaborations, I anticipate we will overcome this challenge and accelerate advancements in FTD research.
What hopes do you have for FTD research?
Despite the clinical, pathologic, and anatomical heterogeneity in the FTD spectrum, I believe that investigating the anatomical correlates of the complex heterogeneity will uncover which cells are the most and least vulnerable to disease, directing the development of better therapeutics to protect and maintain the integrity of neuronal connections.
