Full professor
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience
Faculty of Medicine

Prof. Sébastien Hébert is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at Université Laval and a group leader in the Neuroscience Program of the CHU de Québec-Université Laval Research Center. After completing a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology at Université de Sherbrooke and a PhD in cellular and molecular biology at Université Laval, he completed postdoctoral training in human genetics at KU Leuven, Belgium, before being recruited to Université Laval in 2009.
His work addresses the molecular, genetic, immune, and systemic mechanisms involved in neurodegenerative diseases, primarily Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease. His team focuses particularly on small non-coding RNAs, neuroinflammation, brain-periphery interactions, and the development of preclinical models more representative of human disease.
A major research axis of the laboratory concerns the miR-132/212 family and its therapeutic role in neurodegenerative diseases. The laboratory is also developing an indoor rewilding platform for laboratory mice. This approach exposes laboratory mice to a complex natural environment to promote immune system maturation. These models allow the team to study the influence of environment and natural immunity on disease development, microglia, the blood-brain barrier, and treatment response, while improving the translational relevance of animal models. In Huntington’s disease, the team also studies the molecular mechanisms in the brain as well as the peripheral manifestations of the disease, particularly in muscle, bone, and respiratory function.
This work combines molecular biology, transcriptomics, high-throughput sequencing, immunophenotyping, imaging, physiology, and bioinformatics, using cellular and animal models as well as human tissue and samples.