Development Of Treatments For Brain Disorders

Due to this, it has been deemed difficult to determine which deficit is the consequence of which part of a lesion. To overcome this problem, other methods are being used to aid in the visualisation of memory processes in the healthy parts of the brain. These come in the form of functional neuroimaging studies using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). These studies have allowed researchers to target specific memory processes using targeted psychological experiments. However, with all psychological experiments, there are limitations to using neuroimaging equipment. PET and fMRI attain their signals from local changes in blood flow or metabolism correlated with neural activity rather than from brain waves (or signals). The local vascular changes affect the distribution of an injected radionuclide (e.g. O15) in PET or magnetic properties that are blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) in fMRI. The indirect measure of neural activity limits the temporal and spatial fidelity of activations.

Using Functional MRI helps to visualize the brain functionality through local metabolism. In this technology it allows the researcher to measure and track the brain functions by discovering the correlated changes in blood flow. From this functional Mri when a brain function is acted out the flow of oxygenated rich blood is detected and highlighted on the specific location where the functionality came from on the brain.

In this class, we focused on Alzheimer's, specifically how it affected the person. I found myself especially drawn to the chemistry behind it and how the brain was altered in ways that couldn't be examined until the autopsy. Alzheimer’s is a disease that as of yet has no cure, but has the potential to affect a fair majority of the population in the future. In view of this, I want to approach potential treatments neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s from a chemical standpoint and attempt to find preventative measures if not a cure. With this in mind, my interests lie in both organic chemistry and biochemistry. I am interested in the use of organic synthesis to create new medically useful compounds. Moreover, I am interested in the neurological responses and biological effects of the newly created compounds and how said compounds are applicable in the medical

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Dementia is a disease that affects a vast number of Americans, and people worldwide. As people grow and live longer in today’s world the cases of clinical dementia are increasing. There are many causes of dementia, equally leading to different forms and symptoms of this disease. Most causes of dementia are known, and labeled in order to establish proper treatment. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, accounting for more than half of all people with dementia. The cause, and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are well known within the scientific community, but a cure is yet to be discovered. This show that there is still much improvement to be done within the scientific and medical

These areas are monitored because Alzheimer’s Disease, a form of dementia, is due to degenerative atrophy of neurons and synapses which cause decreases in activity, functionality, and size, within these areas. This is why Alzheimer’s Disease is bookmarked by memory loss, confusion, disorientation about time and place, poor judgment, and changes in mood, behavior, and personality. However, when it comes to the use of sMRI and fMRI as biomarkers for determining and testing brain activity in individuals at risk for Alzheimer disease the validity of their use is not so straight forward. Making an accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease during the early stages of the disease is a hard one to make. Which means making an accurate diagnosis before any clinical symptoms occur is extremely hard. This is why the majority of biomarkers including sMRI and fMRI are only available as a research tool and are not yet accepted in clinical practice when it comes to diagnosing patients before the onset of any clinical symptoms. With the little success Alzheimer’s Disease medications/interventions have had, many researchers have shifted their focus to a new population group. The new population group is patients who do not yet exhibit Alzheimer’s symptoms but whose brains physically show possible pre-Alzheimer’s disease precursors. Researchers want to see if they can find some kind of common deterioration in brain function and structure in pre-Alzheimer’s

The fMRI is a scientific tool used to record brain functions this machine has also helped teach scientist more about the addiction disease characteristics of the brain “The fMRI had been discovered in the early 1990s but it only became increasingly popular by being used in addiction studies almost ten years later. It functions the same way as the standard MRI, a tool using a strong magnetic field and radio waves however, instead of taking pictures of the body's organs, it tracks the brain's blood flow. Researchers using the fMRI to study psychological phenomena monitor changes

Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) is a functional neuroimaging procedure using MRI technology that measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This techniques assumes that a neuronal activity increases the blood flow. An fMRI can spot the areas of the brain that are used by comparing the Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) ‘The fMRI takes advantage of the fact that oxyhemoglobin (the

Since it is already known that Parkinsons is a neurodegerative disorder but the etiology is uncertain as regards what exactly can contribute to its original progression the need for Parkinson induced models is critical. 6-Hyroxydopamine (6-OHDA) is a compound specifically designed to determine the molecular mechanisms of neuronal death. 6-OHDA is the most widely used neurotoxin for both in vivo and in vitro studies to model the common Parkinson trait of nigral degeneration. 6-OHDA is a synthetic hydroxylated analogue compound of the normal endogenous neurotransmitter dopamine. The very first biological effects of 6-OHDA were demonstrated by (Porter et al., 1963) and (Stone et al., 1963) however the compound was first isolated in 1959 by Senoh (Senoh and Witkop, 1959).

Functional trans-cranial doppler (FTCD) was originally a clinical technique that determines cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) in the main cerebral arteries of the brain (Sigut, et al. 2015., p. 50). However, because the doppler is noninvasive, fast, and shows high test-retest reliability FTCD has more recently been used in neuroscience research related to hemispheric lateralization. FTCD follows a similar principle to that of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) in that an increase in blood flow velocity correlates with increased neural activity. This is achieved by having two probes record from cerebral arteries bilaterally in unison. This allows the FTCD to have excellent temporal resolution. Studies have also shown that FTCD is

Attempts to cure or slow down the progression of Parkinson’s disease have largely failed; researchers in this paper maintain this is obviously a direct result of the lack of insight into the pathogenesis of the disease. Parkinson’s disease is the product of the deaths of a number of dopaminergic (dopamine-secreting) neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta region (SNc) of the brain. But what causes these deaths? In the paper “‘Rejuvenation’ protects neurons in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease,” Chen and researchers find that older neurons in the SNc are unusually reliant on calcium channels and that after blocking these channels, the cells are “rejuvenated” and begin acting like their juvenile counterparts; as a

Hemoglobin is diamagnetic when oxygenated but paramagnetic when deoxygenated. This variant in magnetic rareness leads to slight differences in the FMRI signal of blood, dependent upon the quantity of oxygenation. Since blood oxygenation varies according to the levels of neural activity these differences can be utilized to reveal brain activity. This form of FMRI is known as blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) imaging.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the classical motor symptoms: resting tremor, bradykinesia, akinesia, rigidity and postural instability. Although the complete PD pathogenesis is not well understood, we have gained a better understanding of its etiology, pathology, and molecular mechanisms, thanks to the use of animal models. Importantly, none of the current available models is able to fully recapitulate PD symptoms and pathology. Each model is based on the production of one or few pathological processes of PD, which are either artificially induced in a way that is seldom relevant to the disease (like toxin models), or that produces only a small part of the pathology (like genetic models).

Current studies on brain research utilise sophisticated techniques and advanced technologies in laboratory design compared with historical methods in brain research, whilst obeying the 3Rs and Animal Welfare Legislation pertinent to their Country. In a recent study conducted by Klein et al. (2011), they analysed the use of the Brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), an element useful in neural survival, differentiation and synaptic plasticity as a biological marker using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Studies of neuropsychiatric patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), had suggested that BDNF could be used in that respect and would have become a significant breakthrough in the use of animals in brain research. Their findings suggested BDNF levels in whole blood were representative of brain tissue BDNF levels across different species, including the pigs, rats and mice used in the experiment. Mice produced the best correlation in the frontal cortex and the hippocampal BDNF levels (Klein et al., 2011). Accordingly, a limitation of this study is the reliability when determining how these results transfer to patient populations. Albeit, these findings support the use of animals in brain research, especially the advanced laboratory methods like the use of ELISA and biological markers which resulted in less pain and killing of animals.

In order to measure the brain effectively, neuromarketers use the latest technology that assess the brain’s activity most accurately. Although there are apparently many techniques that scientists propose, only a few have stood the test of time and are being used most widely. The three techniques are Electroencephalogram (EEG), Functional