Prof. Inna Slutsky is the President of Israel Society of Neuroscience, Head of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and scientific committee member of Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. Her research is focused on understanding the basic mechanisms that maintain stability-plasticity balance in hippocampal circuits and initiate circuit-wide dysfunctions during the presymptomatic phase of Alzheimer’s disease. Using advanced optical imaging, electrophysiology and molecular biology tools, Slutsky’s team uncovered the mechanisms that drive synaptic, network and cognitive impairments in Alzheimer’s disease models (Abramov et al., Nature Neurosci, 2009; Dolev et al., Nature Neurosci, 2013; Fogel et al., Cell Reports, 2014;Gazit et al., Neuron, 2016;). Currently, her team explores the principles and mechanisms underlying stability of neural circuit’s functioning and the role of mitochondria in this regulation (Slomowitz et al., eLife, 2015; Styr et al., Neuron, 2019; Katsenelson et al., PNAS 2022). Recently, she proposed a new hypothesis stating that dysregulation of homeostatic firing rate set points during low-arousal brain states drive Alzheimer’s pathophysiology (Styr & Slutsky, Nature Neurosci 2018; Frere & Slutsky, Neuron 2018; Zarhin et al., Cell Reports 2022). Her recent discoveries are at the basis of FutuRx’ company Selene Therapeutics, pioneering a new conceptual strategy to treat epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease by lowering activity set points in brain circuits.
Prof. Slutsky completed her PhD in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and post-doctorate studies at MIT. Slutsky is the recipient of the 2010 Bernard Katz Prize in Neuroscience, 2010 the New Investigator Award in Alzheimer’s disease from American Federation for Ageing Research, 2011 Sieratzki Prize in Neuroscience, the ERC 2011 starting and 2016 consolidator awards, the 2016 MetLife foundation prize in Alzheimer’s research, 2019 Israel-China Flagship award in Brain Sciences and 2014 Mentorship Award.