January 22
@
4:00 PM
–
5:00 PM
The ME 903: Graduate Student Lecture Series features campus and visiting speakers who present on a variety of research topics in the field of mechanical engineering. Professor Jeff Tithof is a professor at the University of Minnesota.
Title: Coupled Blood–CSF Flow Dynamics Driving Waste Clearance in the Brain
Abstract: The last decade has seen a tremendous increase in research probing the role of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) circulation through the brain in health and disease. This circulation, known as the “glymphatic” (glial-lymphatic) system, is a novel transport pathway first described in 2012 which plays an important role in removing protein waste from the brain. Amyloid-beta is one such protein waste that is known to accumulate over decades, contributing to the development of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s. I will first give a brief history of this field, then discuss several important open questions, including what propels CSF circulation and why it decreases with aging. I will present recent numerical modeling from my research team that suggests CSF and blood flow work synergistically to amplify brain waste clearance. I will also show that by carefully calibrating our model against published in vivo measurements of amyloid-beta, we obtained critical waste production and clearance parameters not yet measured in experiments. In the last portion of the seminar, I will present preliminary results from in vivo mouse experiments demonstrating how neuromodulation (electrical stimulation of nerves) can be leveraged to enhance glymphatic transport in the brain, potentially leading to therapeutic approaches to prevent or slow progression of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Bio: Dr. Jeff Tithof is a Benjamin Mayhugh Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Georgia Tech in 2016 and his B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from University of Tennessee in 2010. From 2016 to 2020, Jeff was a postdoc then an Assistant Research Professor at University of Rochester. His research focuses on biological fluid dynamics, often involving complementary utilization of in vivo experiments and numerical simulations. Jeff has coauthored 35 peer-reviewed publications, including 20 involving brain mass transport. Jeff received the University of Minnesota Mechanical Engineering “Nugent Family Faculty Teaching Award” in 2025 and a “Career Award at the Scientific Interface” from Burroughs Wellcome Fund in 2019.