Rate My Professor Emily Lane-Hill

Her research investigates the role of tau protein in early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, focusing on how tau aggregates disrupt neuronal excitability, synaptic transmission, and plasticity. Utilizing whole-cell patch clamp recordings and computational modeling, she has demonstrated that tau oligomers alter hippocampal circuit excitability, enhance long-term depression, and induce hyperexcitability via cerebrospinal fluid tau, affecting theta oscillations critical for learning and memory. Lane-Hill collaborates with biomarker experts at the University of Gothenburg and has developed assays screening patient CSF for tau effects. Key publications include: Islam et al. (2025), 'Phospho-tau serine-262 and serine-356 as biomarkers of pre-tangle soluble tau assemblies in Alzheimer’s disease' in Nature Medicine; Wang et al. (2025), 'Incubation with tau aggregates increases hippocampal circuit excitability' in Frontiers in Neural Circuits; Brown et al. (2023), 'Tau in cerebrospinal fluid induces neuronal hyperexcitability' in Acta Neuropathologica Communications; Hill et al. (2021), 'Truncating Tau reveals different pathophysiological actions of oligomers' in Communications Biology; and Hill et al. (2023), 'Functional applications of stable Tau Oligomers' in Methods in Molecular Biology. Her work extends to CO2-sensitive hemichannels and alpha-synuclein aggregates in Parkinson’s-related neuronal conductance.