LIPIDS AND NEUROLOGICAL INJURY: A DECADE OF PROGRESS
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Adina T. Michael-Titus
Professor of Neuroscience
Centre for Neuroscience, Surgery and Trauma
Blizard Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
Queen Mary University of London
London, United Kingdom

Injury in the nervous system remains one of the major areas in medicine where there is a need for new therapeutics. Traumatic injury can lead to significant and irreversible damage to the brain and spinal cord, and this is often a life-changing event for an individual. The pathophysiology of neurological injury is associated with major changes in specific structural lipids. Furthermore, evidence from a variety of experimental studies shows that some lipids – in particular fatty acids, activate discrete signalling pathways and have significant therapeutic potential, by conferring neuroprotection and also by activating repair mechanisms post-injury. In addition, recent years have seen an accumulation of information on fatty acid-derived lipid mediators which could have intrinsic beneficial effects after neurological injury. The talk will review the experimental evidence, and the key developments over the last decade, and will summarise ongoing clinical efforts to move promising observations from the bench to the clinic.