Sarah Svirsky

Research Assistant

Email: ssvirsky@bu.edu
Location: VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank
200 Springs Road Bedford MA

Sarah Svirsky received a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience and Anthropology from Barnard College in New York, New York, in 2013. As an undergrad, Sarah worked as a research assistant in a lab studying the neurobiology of stress and completed a senior thesis, which studied the role of the paraventricular thalamic nucleus on hormonal habituation of adult and adolescent rats.

Sarah first gained experience in neurodegenerative disease while working at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease. There, she researched the impact of conformational changes of the Presenilin 1 protein on synaptic proteins using various cell lines and mouse models. With a desire to pursue research in the clinical and translational fields, Sarah joined the BU CTE Center in June 2016.

Sarah works at the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank where she assists neuropathologists in studying postmortem brain donations for signs of CTE and other neurodegenerative diseases. She coordinates and manages various internal lab projects and external collaborations, including the collection and distribution of brain samples for approved tissue requests. She also conducts histological experiments, database management and inventorying of neurobio specimens received, such as brain, spinal cord, cerebrospinal fluid, and eye tissues.

Research Interests:

Sarah is interested in understanding the neuronal correlates of behavior and how systematic changes in the brain lead to subsequent clinical outcomes. She is also interested in understanding the fascinating interplay of the psychiatric and neurodegenerative presentation of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, and how it can teach us about pathological mechanisms of related diseases.