Gabriel Costa

Dr Gabriel Costa graduated in Biology from the University of Coimbra in 2006 and completed a PhD degree in Biology from the same University in 2012. After concluding his PhD degree, he dedicated his postdoctoral scientific research to the study of Neurosciences, particularly in neurophysiology and cognition. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Life Sciences (IBILI, Coimbra) and at the Neuropsychiatry Unit at Champalimaud Foundation (Lisbon).

As part of his NeuroInsight postdoctoral fellowship at Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (Trinity College Dublin) he will study why certain neuronal populations and brain areas are more susceptible to damage in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease affecting primarily motor neurons, but also more frontal areas associated with dementia. Gabriel and his team will use the information from neuroelectric recordings to identify brain areas where neuronal activity is initially impaired in ALS and correlate these with detailed maps of brain organization. We expect to identify the intrinsic factors that define vulnerable neuronal populations in ALS.