24 Facts About Alexei Verkhratsky

Alexei Verkhratsky, sometimes spelled Alexej, is a professor of neurophysiology at the University of Manchester best known for his research on the physiology and pathophysiology of neuroglia, calcium signalling, and brain ageing.

Alexei Verkhratsky is an elected member and vice-president of Academia Europaea, of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, of the Real Academia Nacional de Farmacia, of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, of Polish Academy of Sciences, and Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, among others.

Alexei Verkhratsky is a distinguished professor at Jinan University, China Medical University of Shenyang, and Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and is an editor-in-chief of Cell Calcium, receiving editor for Cell Death and Disease, and Acta Physiologica and member of editorial board of many academic journals.

Alexei Verkhratsky's father is Nestor Verkhratsky, a gerontologist who headed a laboratory at the Institute of Gerontology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Alexei Verkhratsky's mother is Nina Verzykosvka, who was a head of department at the same Institute.

Alexei Verkhratsky's grandfather is Sergey Verkhratsky who was head of the Department of Surgery in Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University, a renowned historian of medicine, and a decorated veteran of both World Wars having received the Order of Lenin, Order of the Red Star, and Order of the Patriotic War.

Alexei Verkhratsky's grandmother was Dina Shirman-Verkhratska, a well known gynaecologist.

Alexei Verkhratsky was a guest scientist at the Research Group of Cellular Neurophysiology, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and the Department of Cellular Neuroscience of the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Germany in 1992 and 1993, respectively.

Alexei Verkhratsky returned to Germany in 1995 as a senior research scientist at the Department of Cellular Neuroscience in the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine.

In 1990, Alexei Verkhratsky discovered functional expression of low- and high-threshold Ca channels in oligodendroglial precursors, this is the earliest finding underlying the concept of electrical excitability of NG2-glia.

Alexei Verkhratsky was the first to demonstrate in situ functional expression of metabotropic purinoceptors linked to InsP3-induced Ca release in oligodendroglia and in cerebellar Bergmann astrocytes.

Alexei Verkhratsky further extended the concept of astroglial excitability as "ionic" excitability mediated by major ions, which create ionic signals coordinated in space and time; these ionic signals control the activity of astroglial homeostatic cascades and link neuronal firing and synaptic transmission to astrocyte functional responses.

Subsequently, Alexei Verkhratsky analysed astroglial Na dynamics associated with the activity of glial glutamate transporters that are critical for glutamate clearance and glutamatergic transmission.

Alexei Verkhratsky found that activation of glial transporters either by exogenous glutamate or by activation of glutamatergic transmission results in large Na influx which generate substantial and long-lasting [Na+]i transients in processes of astrocytes.

Alexei Verkhratsky conducted the first recordings of Ca currents in aged sensory neurones in 1993.

Alexei Verkhratsky subsequently pioneered cytosolic Ca recordings in aged neurones in situ, which gave direct experimental support for multiple aspects of a "Ca theory of ageing".

Alexei Verkhratsky was the first to perform an in depth analysis of astrocytic structure and function in the ageing brain.

Alexei Verkhratsky has demonstrated regional differences in astroglial morphological appearances, which ranged from cytoskeleton hypertrophy to cytoskeleton atrophy.

Alexei Verkhratsky found that large populations of astrocytes negative to classical marker GFAP but positive to glutamine synthetase or S100B protein do not show hypertrophic changes in the aged brain thus suggesting that brain senescence is not associated with widespread astrogliosis.

Alexei Verkhratsky performed first detailed analysis of functional properties of glutamate transporters, glutamate and purinoceptors in old astrocytes in situ and found that brain ageing is associated with significant decrease in the density of these signalling molecules.

Alexei Verkhratsky has developed a new concept of astroglial atrophy associated with the loss of function and glial paralysis as key elements of neuropathology; astroglial atrophy contributes to pathophysiology of several neurological diseases from neuropsychiatric disorders to neurodegeneration.

Alexei Verkhratsky demonstrated deficient astrogliosis in the brain regions most vulnerable to Alzheimer-like pathology; these deficits in astroglial protection can be associated with brain region-specific alterations of the Ca signalling toolkit.

Alexei Verkhratsky found that environmental stimulation restored AD associated glial abnormalities.

Alexei Verkhratsky contributed to the identification of ER Ca release mechanisms in neurones; he characterised in detail the caffeine-induced Ca release in sensory neurones and was the first to perform real-time measurements of intra-ER Ca dynamics in neurones to demonstrate the graded nature of Ca-induced Ca release.