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 Research & Giving News Article  A team led by two-time NARSAD investigator Hilary Blumberg, M.D., of Yale University, has reported in the journal Biological Psychiatry that levels of a molecule called VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) correlate with variations in brain volume that may help account for cognitive symptoms reported by some patients using anti-VEGF therapies for cancer and other diseases. “As we identify genes important in the development of brain disorders, we can develop new and more effective treatments that could target the related, specific molecular mechanisms,” said Dr. Blumberg, who is associate professor of psychiatry and diagnostic radiology at the Yale School of Medicine and Yale Child Study Center and directs Yale’s Mood Disorders Research Program. Dr. Blumberg was a NARSAD Young Investigator in 2002 and was awarded an Independent Investigator grant in 2006. VEGF, Neurogenesis and Hippocampal Volume VEGF promotes blood-vessel growth, a process called angiogenesis. It has been a favorite target for scientists seeking to “starve” cancer tumors of their blood supply. Other scientists, at the same time, have been interested in increasing VEGF levels to help repair damaged hearts. Now it appears that this growth factor may also be crucial for the development and repair of the hippocampus, an area of the brain where memory is consolidated and which has been implicated in mood disorders such as depression and in dementias such as those seen in Alzheimer’s disease. Yale University researchers have been at the forefront of the hunt for genes that stimulate the growth of new neurons, a process called neurogenesis, in the hippocampus. The field was jumpstarted when Ronald Duman, Ph.D, of the Yale faculty and a member of NARSAD’s Scientific Council, noted in 2000 that anti-depressants triggered the creation of new cells in the hippocampus. (This discovery is discussed in the context of new research on hippocampal neurogenesis by NARSAD investigator Grigori Enikolopov, Ph.D., in the 2008 NARSAD publication Breakthroughs.) Drs. Blumberg, Duman and colleagues did DNA tests on 47 healthy individuals to assess genetic variations in VEGF and conducted brain-imaging scans of the subjects to examine how these genetic variations might influence the structure of the brain. They found that the volume of hippocampus was significantly related to variations in the VEGF gene in their subjects. This story was adapted by NARSAD with permission of the Yale University School of Medicine. |
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