Department of Medical Neuroscience

Faculty of Medicine

Alon Friedman

Professor and Dennis Chair in Epilepsy Research

Medical_Neuroscience_Alon_Friedman

Related information

Department of Medical Neuroscience , Department of Pediatrics

Email: alon.friedman@dal.ca
Phone: 902-494-3725
Mailing Address: 
Room 12 H, 12th Floor, Sir Charles Tupper Building, 5850 College Street; PO Box 15000, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4R2
 
Research Topics:
  • Neurological disorders
  • Epileptogenesis
  • Epilepsy
  • Blood-brain barrier
  • Electrophysiology
  • Confocal imaging
  • Glia
  • in vivo
  • Stroke
  • Neurodegeneration
  • Stress and the brain
  • Neuroimaging
  • Neurophysiology

Education

  • BSc (Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)
  • MD  (Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)
  • PhD (Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)

Research interests

My research focus is on how the components of the neurovascular network, including nerve cells, glia and vasculature, interact to underlie abnormal brain functions following traumatic and ischemic brain injuries.

Through a combination of molecular, imaging and electrophysiological techniques, my research focuses on shedding light on the unknown pathological cascade leading to post-injury epilepsy and neurodegeneration, towards the development of new diagnostics and preventive treatments in injured individuals.

Selected publications

  • Friedman, A., Kaufer, D., Hendler, I., Shemer, J., Soreq, H. and Tur-Kaspa, I. 1996, Pyridostigmine brain penetration under stress enhances neuronal excitability and induces immediate transcriptional response. Nature-Medicine, 2: 1382-5. Accompanied by a News and Views cover page pp. 1307-1308.
  • Seiffert, E., Dreier, J.P., Ivens, S., Bechmann, I., Heinemann, U. and Friedman, A. 2004, Focal blood-brain-barrier disruption induces epileptiform activity in the rat neocortex. J. Neuroscience, 24:7829-36.
  • Yaron David, Luisa P Flores, Sebastian Ivens, Uwe Heinemann, Daniela Kaufer and Alon Friedman. 2009. Astrocytic dysfunction in epileptogenesis: consequences of altered potassium and glutamate buffering? Journal of Neuroscience,29 (34):10588-99.
  • Dan Shlosberg, MonyBenifla, Daniela Kaufer and Alon Friedman. 2010. Blood-Brain Barrier Breakdown as a Therapeutic Target in Traumatic Brain Injury. Nature Reviews Neurology, 6: 393-404.
  • Guy Bar-Klein, Luisa P. Cacheaux, Lyn Kamintsky, Ofer Prager, Itai Weissberg, Karl Schoknecht, Paul Cheng, Soo Young Kim, Lydia Wood, Uwe Heinemann, Daniela Kaufer and Alon Friedman. (2014) Losartan prevents acquired epilepsy via TGF-β signaling suppression. Annals of Neurology, 75(6):864-75.

Selected awards and honours

  • Mercator Program for Visiting Professorships at German Universities, Charité Medical University, Berlin, Germany. 2009.
  • The Michael Prize for Epilepsy Research, The Stiftung Michael, Bonn, Germany. 2007.
  • American Physicians Fellowship for Medicine in Israel, The APS Kass Award for Medical Research. 2001-2002.
  • The Zigler Prize for original research, The Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israeli Institute of Technology. 2000.
  • Foulkes Foundation Research Awards (London, UK) for original contribution of scientific research to medicine. 1997.