A breakthrough by scientists at the University of Leicester in understanding mechanisms within the brain which cause injury could lead to better treatments in the future for conditions such as as cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis.
Drs Robert Fern and Mike Salter of the Department of Cell Physiology and Pharmocology at the University of Leicester had their findings published in the science journal Nature.
Their study is particularly important as it identifies the cause of damage to the brain and the mechanism by which this occcurs - thereby raising the possibility of drugs being developed in the future which may help to reduce injury and the disease states that follow.
Dr Fern said: "This project has taken over a year to complete and has produced some rather important findings. We believe that we may have opened a new window into how the brain becomes damaged in a number of important diseases ranging from stroke to multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury. We will now continue to study the particular brain receptor that is involved in the hope of discovering a way to block the receptor and therefore avert brain injury for a large number of patients."
This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to R.F.
More about glutamate:
The brain is the organ responsible for our thoughts, memories, sensations and emotions. All these functions occur because neurons, the "little grey cells" of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, are able to pass signals between one another using a chemical called glutamate.
Glutamate is released by neuronal structures called synapses and interacts with special receptors on neighboring neurons. While most people will have heard of neurons, it is not commonly known that only about half of the brain is actually made up of these cells, with the remainder being made up of non-neuronal cells called glial cells.