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 Research & Giving News Article  to Track Neurogenesis in Live Human Brain Diagnostic Applications Foreseen in Depression, PTSD, Bipolar Disease, Cancer The biomarker is a lipid molecule whose presence the scientists were able consistently to detect in a part of the brain called the hippocampus where new nerve cells are known to be generated. The marker was not detected in the cortex and other parts of the brain where this process, called neurogenesis, does not occur in healthy adults. As elsewhere in the body, the rise of new cells in the brain is a process that can be traced to stem cells, which, through mechanisms still only partly grasped, give birth to “daughter” progenitor cells that undergo repeated division and maturation into “adult” cells. The marker developed by the scientists can be detected when NPCs -- stem-like “progenitor” cells -- are actively dividing, setting the maturation process in motion. “Until now, there was no way to identify and track these cells in living people, to get a dynamic picture of neurogenesis,” said Grigori Enikolopov, Ph.D., a 2006 NARSAD Independent Investigator who heads a lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in Long Island, New York. Dr. Enikolopov, together with Dr. Mirjana Maletic-Savatic of SUNY Stony Brook and CSHL, and others from their institutions and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), authored a paper announcing the discovery of the neural stem cell marker. It appeared in the November 9 issue of the journal Science. A Broad Range of Potential Applications A fuller understanding of neural stem and progenitor cells could one day unlock the secret to nervous-system regeneration following stroke or massive trauma. In the nearer-term, being able to track stem-like cells and the process of neurogenesis in living patients is likely to yield more powerful diagnostics. “The technique that the team developed makes use of MRI technology that is currently in widespread use,” Dr. Enikolopov said. “We use it to perform non-invasive scans of the living brain that can tell us where stem-like cells are dividing.” “Although we are only just beginning to test applications, this biomarker may have promise in identifying cell proliferation in the brain, which can be a sign of cancer. In another class of patients, it could show us how neurogenesis is related to the course of diseases such as depression, bipolar disorder, Parkinson’s, MS, and post-traumatic stress disorder.” In 2006, Dr. Enikolopov demonstrated that the antidepressant fluoxetine (Prozac) stimulates the creation of new nerve cells from NPCs in the hippocampus of depressed patients. He later demonstrated that an even more pronounced effect on stem and progenitor cells in the brain was brought about by other depression treatments, electroconvulsive therapy (ECS) and deep-brain stimulation (DBS). As recently as a few years ago, most scientists did not believe that new nerve cells were created anywhere in the adult brain. “The recent finding that neural progenitor cells exist in the adult human brain has opened a whole new field in neuroscience,” said Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D., deputy director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), which helped fund the work. “The ability to track these cells in living people would be a major breakthrough in understanding brain development in children and continued maturation of the adult brain. It could also be a very useful tool for research aimed at influencing NPCs to restore or maintain brain health.” Discovery of the neural stem cell marker relied heavily upon the development of an ingenious algorithm devised by Dr. Petar M. Djuric of SUNY Stony Brook. That mathematical formula made the marker’s spectroscopic “image” stand out amid a field filled with visual “noise,” in much the same way as algorithms used in submarine sonar equipment filter out all ambient noise save that of other subs. This allowed the team, which also included Drs. Louis Manganas, Helene Bernveniste, Fritz Henn, Mark Wagshul and their colleagues at SUNY Stony Brook and BNL, to determine that the marker was a lipid, and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique in live animals and in human subjects. This story has been adapted by NARSAD with permission of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. |
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