Spring Data Neo4j 4 very slow for large hierarchical queries - neo4j

Question

I am currently using SpringDataNeo4j–4.1.0.M1 and have a use case where I need to get a sub-graph (actually a tree) and return it in an hierarchical structure similar to this (these sub-graphs are usually around 500 nodes in size and have an unspecified depth):
<Pathway dbId="1" displayName="Name1">
<Pathway dbId="2" displayName="Name2">
<Pathway dbId="3" displayName="Name3">
<Reaction dbId="4" displayName="Name4" />
<Reaction dbId="5" displayName="Name5" />
<Pathway dbId="6" displayName="Name6">
<Reaction dbId="7" displayName="Name7" />
</Pathway>
</Pathway>
...
The data model:
#NodeEntity
public abstract class Event {
#GraphId
private Long id;
private Long dbId;
private String displayName;
... other relationships and properties
}
#NodeEntity
public class Pathway extends Event {
#Relationship(type="hasEvent", direction = Relationship.OUTGOING)
private List<Event> hasEvent;
... other relationships and properties
}
#NodeEntity
public class Reaction extends Event {
... other relationships and properties
}
To solve this I have created the following query:
String query = "Match (n:Pathway{dbId:123456})-[r:hasEvent*]->(m:Event) Return n,r,m";
Result result = neo4jTemplate.query(query,Collections.<~>emptyMap());
return result.iterator().next().get("n");
This is working and returns the result as expected. The only problem is the speed. While testing the query using the Neo4j-Browser I get a result within 50-100ms. Using SDN it takes over 2 seconds for Spring to map the result to objects.
The question now is: Is there any way I can speed up this query in Spring or is there a better solution where I can return this hierarchical structure in Cypher using something like nested Collections(since I only need the names and ids and not the objects themselves)?