The fellow will pursue a series of related experiments regarding selective neuronal vulnerability in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and related disorders. The fellow will obtain advanced training in neuroanatomy, neurohistology, experimental human neuropathology, and gene and protein expression profiling to facilitate experiments geared toward understanding what makes specific sets of neurons vulnerable to disease. Potential projects focus on specific aspects of: 1) neuronal splicing dysregulation in TDP-43 related disease, 2) the molecular identity and vulnerability of von Economo neurons, a phylogenetically specialized class of large projection neurons targeted in FTLD, or 3) integrative analyses designed to derive novel insights based on massively multiplexed immunofluorescence images obtain from patients with FTLD and ALS.