
Neural plasticity in neuropsychiatric and neurologic disorders

The principal investigator
Albert Giralt Torroella
Team leader (Associate Professor)
ORCID: 0000-0001-5334-0963
Twitter: @neurocientific
First of all, thank you for visiting our official webpage. Let me introduce myself. My name is Albert Giralt and I have a degree in Psychology (2005). Later, I started my PhD in Neurosciences (2006-2010) focused on the study of Huntingon's disease. I did my first postdoc about synaptic plasticity alterations in Huntington's disease (2010-2013) and my second postdoc was about synaptic plasticity and signalling in the hippocampus (2013-2017). I started my line of research as a team leader since March 2018. Currently I'm an Associae Professor in the University of Barcelona.
Our group is interested in three lines of research distributed in three different neurological diseases but sharing a common point, the study of the hippocampal function in basal and pathological conditions. The three lines of research are:
1. The characterization of new genetic risk factors in Alzheimer's disease and the study of new therapeutic strategies.
2. Characterization of the altered circuits in models of depression induced by chronic stress.
3. Study of neuroimmunological alterations in the context of schizophrenia by using translational approaches combining murine models and human samples.



We are CREATIO
Additionallly, Albert Giralt is the Scientific Director of Creatio. Research area of Creatio is dedicated to the research and translation of Advanced Therapies with a focus on neurodevelopment and neurological diseases under ISO 9001:2015 standards. The research area is located in the spaces of the Department of Biomedicine in the north wing of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona.
The research area consists of facilities of 103 m² and include 3 culture rooms (2 of them are dedicated to the maintenance, growth, and differentiation of human stem cells, and the other is dedicated to gene manipulation). In addition, this area has 2 laboratories dedicated to research activities, a genotyping area, and a high-resolution imaging area. On the other hand, the area has spaces in the freezing and cryopreservation area of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, as well as access to the Scientific and Technological Centers of the University of Barcelona (CCiTUB), and to the platforms of the Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona-Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (FRCB-IDIBAPS).
AVANTDRUG is also CREATIO: Preclinical studies area – avantdrug by Creatio is dedicated to the validation of new technologies and medicinal products in development through giving advice and carrying out regulatory studies under ISO 9001:2015 and Good Laboratory Practices (GLP), if requested.
The 2 laboratories of the preclinical studies area – avantdrug occupy a total area of 88 m2, located at the Cluster I of the Barcelona Science Park (PCB). These spaces are divided into 1 analytical laboratory and 1 histology laboratory. Moreover, the area has an additional space for freezing and access to the PCB services and platforms, as well as, the services of the Scientific and Technological Centers of the University of Barcelona (CCiTUB) which complete the offer.
Website: https://www.ub.edu/creatio/en/about-us/