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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

Olivia O’Neill @olivia-oneill.bsky.social · 6h

Honoured to be included as one of the 2026 Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholars. Many thanks to the Killam Trusts and University of Calgary for supporting my doctoral research. Special thanks to my supervisor @deryasargin.bsky.social for her exceptional mentorship. news.ucalgary.ca/news/next-ge...

news.ucalgary.ca

The next generation of research leaders

Meet the 18 PhD students recognized as UCalgary’s 2026 Killam Scholars and discover the research earning them one of the university’s most prestigious graduate awards

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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

Canadian Association for Neuroscience @canacn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Dr. Dylan Terstege's research shows reduced activity in a brain region called the retrosplenial cortex is linked to sex-dependent vulnerability in Alzheimer’s disease, can-acn.org/brain-star-a...

can-acn.org

Brain Star Award winner Dylan Terstege – Canadian Association for Neuroscience

Canadian Association for Neuroscience

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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

International Behavioral Neuroscience Society @ibnsconnect.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Learning what happens after early life insults #IBNSSouthAfrica

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Very honoured to have been included in this latest cohort of CAN and CIHR-INMHA Brain Star awardees! Congratulations to all of the other winners!

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

This work from my PhD with the Epp Lab builds off of a previous study, where we identified sex-specific, early, dysfunction among PV-IN populations in the RSC during AD pathogenesis: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Impaired parvalbumin interneurons in the retrosplenial cortex as the cause of sex-dependent vulnerability in Alzheimer’s disease

Altered function, connectivity, and survival of parvalbumin-expressing neurons in the retrosplenial cortex in Alzheimer’s disease.

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Continued learning, sociability, and exercise promote resilience to memory impairment in AD These factors also increase the activity of the RSC, an early site of dysfunction in AD Here we perform an RSC deep-dive to examine this interaction (PV and PNNs matter!) www.jneurosci.org/content/46/9...

jneurosci.org

Environmental Enrichment Preserves Retrosplenial Parvalbumin Density and Cognitive Function in Female 5xFAD Mice

The rate of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease (AD) varies considerably from person to person. Numerous epidemiological studies point to the protective effects of cognitive, social, and physical...

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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

Olivia O’Neill @olivia-oneill.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

New review building on findings from my MSc thesis! Here we discuss the role of dopamine in overcoming boundary conditions for memory reconsolidation. doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

doi.org

Redirecting

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

A little late posting this, but I defended my PhD thesis earlier this year! Big thanks to Jonathan Epp for his mentorship and support over the years - I can’t recommend his lab enough 🇨🇦 Also very excited to share that I’ve started a postdoc at @inmed.bsky.social with Rosa Cossart! 🇫🇷

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Congrats! Looking forward to seeing the research program that you build!

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Derya Sargin @deryasargin.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

As our graduate program deadline approaches, we are recruiting motivated students to join our team. See details below:

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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

Canadian Association for Neuroscience @canacn.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

New ad: Graduate (MSc / PhD) Student Positions – Neurophysiology of Autism Mouse Models – University of Calgary can-acn.org/graduate-msc... @deryasargin.bsky.social #neurojobs

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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

Tallie Z Baram @talliezee.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

You KNOW you've arrived, mainstream, when your invention is turned into an open source asset!🧠🧪 Kudos @deryasargin.bsky.social www.eneuro.org/content/12/6... @cate-cholamine.bsky.social @mathiasvschmidt.bsky.social @zenbrainest.bsky.social @sfn.org #StressNeurobiology @carmensandi10.bsky.social

A girl and her pet are watching the starry night sky, where some of the stars are the brain. a joshua tree on the left indicates the location

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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

Olivia O’Neill @olivia-oneill.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

My first paper in the Sargin Lab 🥳 so grateful to have been able to work on this project @deryasargin.bsky.social @dterstege.bsky.social @jonathanepp.bsky.social

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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

Brain Canada @braincanada.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

A research team led by Dr. Jonathan Epp and Dr. Derya Sargin at the University of Calgary, funded by Brain Canada and Women’s Brain Health Initiative (WBHI), has identified a promising target for new Alzheimer’s disease treatments. bit.ly/45atSCf

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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

Derya Sargin @deryasargin.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Female brain holds the key to understanding Alzheimer’s disease. Epp-Sargin lab collaboration led by @dterstege.bsky.social featuring @liisagalea.bsky.social is out in Science Advances. We uncover the mechanisms that make females more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s - in mouse models and human brains 🧠

science.org

Impaired parvalbumin interneurons in the retrosplenial cortex as the cause of sex-dependent vulnerability in Alzheimer’s disease

Altered function, connectivity, and survival of parvalbumin-expressing neurons in the retrosplenial cortex in Alzheimer’s disease.

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

This wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions of my incredible lab mates and collaborators. Many thanks to Yi Ren, Kabirat Adigun, the @ucalgarymed.bsky.social ASOC (Heewon Seo & Bo Young Ahn), @liisagalea.bsky.social, @deryasargin.bsky.social, and Jonathan Epp. 15/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

In summary, we: Found sex-specific impairments in RSC PV-IN presentation in AD 👫 Characterized consequences locally and brain-wide 🌎 Demonstrated the clinical relevance of this phenotype 🏥 Improved cognitive performance by promoting the activity of RSC PV-INs 🎓 14/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

If dampening RSC PV-INs impairs cognition, can we improve memory performance by increasing the activity of these cells? 📈 By chemogenetically promoting the activity of RSC PV-INs, we improved contextual memory performance in aged female 5xFAD mice 13/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

How does this carry over to the clinic? At rest, RSC activity should be highly correlated with the rest of the default mode network (DMN). Via clinical rs-fMRI scans, we noted increased density of anti-correlated RSC connections with DMN regions in AD. (👀 the slopes of males vs females…) 12/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Does dampening the activity of these cells induce similar changes to those seen in AD? 📉 Turns out, yes. With chemogenetic dampening, we impaired memory performance and increased the density of RSC anti-correlations (shown here in 🟢) 11/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

With c-Fos as a proxy of neuronal activity, we can study brain-wide functional connectivity (see: www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/12...). In female 5xFAD mice, the density of anti-correlated RSC functional connections increases drastically (shown here in 🟢) 10/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Let’s focus on memory impairments, such as those observed in 5xFAD mice. Memory processes depend on networks of brain-wide activity. The RSC is involved in many such networks. PV-IN dysfunction may alter RSC connectivity - but how can we study this in freely-behaving mice? 🤔… 9/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

But what about in freely-behaving mice? 🐁 In vivo, my lab mate Yi Ren and I examined RSC PV-IN dynamics at both a population- and single cell-level. During a working memory task, we identified impaired RSC PV-IN activity in 5xFAD mice. 8/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

These transcriptional changes prompted electrophysiological characterization of RSC PV-INs ⚡️ These experiments were conducted by @deryasargin.bsky.social, who found impaired inhibitory control in RSC PV-INs of female 5xFAD mice. 7/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

But back to the paper: Let’s dive deeper via gene-expression within PV-INs (GeoMx DSP) 🧬 Many genes critical to PV-IN function are down-regulated in female 5xFAD mice, particularly relating to GABA signalling and potassium transport 6/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Maybe this female-specific vulnerability of PV-INs to AD shouldn’t have come as a surprise? From our recent review, these cells are highly sensitive to changes in circulating estrogens and are very vulnerable to metabolic disruption prevalent in AD 👫 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 5/15

sciencedirect.com

Parvalbumin as a sex-specific target in Alzheimer’s disease research – A mini-review

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, and both the incidence of this disease and its associated cognitive decline disproportio…

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Gene expression does not always align with protein expression, so next we assessed PV-IN immunohistochemistry 🔬 Here, we noted earlier impairments in PV-IN presentation in female 5xFAD and similar patterns of impairment in human tissue samples 4/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Altered metabolic activity often coincides with impairments to local neuronal and glial populations With single-cell spatial transcriptomics (Xenium), we noted down-regulation of Pvalb and other PV-IN-related genes in the RSC of 5xFAD mice 🧬 3/15

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

So, why the retrosplenial cortex (RSC)? The RSC is involved in many learning and memory processes. Furthermore, as we previously demonstrated via clinical FDG-PET, hypometabolic activity in this region predicts cognitive decline 🧠 alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 2/15

alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Retrosplenial hypometabolism precedes the conversion from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease

INTRODUCTION Not all individuals who experience mild cognitive impairment (MCI) transition through progressive stages of cognitive decline at the same rate, if at all. Previous observational studies...

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Dylan Terstege @dterstege.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

🚨New paper from the Epp and Sargin Labs!🚨 We identified early sex- and region-specific impairments to parvalbumin interneurons (PV-INs) during Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) pathogenesis www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Simplified highlights below: 🧵/15

science.org

Impaired parvalbumin interneurons in the retrosplenial cortex as the cause of sex-dependent vulnerability in Alzheimer’s disease

Altered function, connectivity, and survival of parvalbumin-expressing neurons in the retrosplenial cortex in Alzheimer’s disease.

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Reposted by Dylan Terstege

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

The new issue of Science Advances (open-access) has multiple papers on women's health. These 2 are related to menopause, hormone replacement and brain health www.science.org/toc/sciadv/c...

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