Many currently incurable diseases of the nervous system are likely to have their origin in problems which happen during the growth of the brain --but pinpointing where the defects occur is like finding a needle in a haystack, says a University of Edinburgh scientist. However, in his inaugural lecture today (Tuesday, 19 April), Professor David Price will explain that research during the past twenty years has given hope for better understanding of the origins of diseases like epilepsy, motor neurone disease and schizophrenia.
He says: "The human brain is staggeringly complex: 15 billion cells with about a thousand billion connections between them. Understanding how the development of such a complex structure is controlled might seem an impossible task, but research in the past twenty years has made us more optimistic.
"In the mid-1980s, research that built on the earlier discovery, in the 1950s, of the structure of DNA and the genetic code, revolutionised our understanding of how simple organisms, such as insects, develop. And then a truly remarkable discovery was made-- that the genes and genetic mechanisms which control development of even very simple organisms are retained in humans. This gives us hope that research on organisms with rudimentary brains will help us learn a lot about how our own brains develop."
David Price is Professor in Developmental Neurobiology and his research group at the University of Edinburgh is one of only two dozen in the world working to understand how genes control the growth of the brain.
Building Brains by Professor David Price, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh: Tuesday, 19 April, 2005 in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre, Medical School, Teviot Place, Edinburgh, United Kingdom at 5.15pm. The lecture is open to the public.
Contact: Linda Menzies
[email protected]
44-131-650-6382
University of Edinburgh
http://www.ed.ac.uk
據(jù)MedicalNewsToday網(wǎng)4月20日消息,，英國(guó)愛(ài)丁堡大學(xué)的一位科學(xué)家稱(chēng),，目前許多無(wú)法治愈的神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)疾病都可能與病人大腦生長(zhǎng)過(guò)程中產(chǎn)生的問(wèn)題有關(guān),但要想確定具體問(wèn)題就像大海撈針一般困難,。然而,，在這位科學(xué)家——戴維·普萊斯教授4月19日的就職講座上解釋說(shuō)，過(guò)去二十年中這方面研究使科學(xué)家們對(duì)某些疾病的病因已經(jīng)有了更深一步的了解,，例如癲癇癥,、運(yùn)動(dòng)神經(jīng)元疾病、以及精神分裂癥等等,。
他說(shuō)：“人類(lèi)大腦的結(jié)構(gòu)極為復(fù)雜：擁有大約150億個(gè)細(xì)胞,，相互間有一萬(wàn)億個(gè)神經(jīng)節(jié),。如果想了解如此復(fù)雜的腦部結(jié)構(gòu)是怎樣發(fā)育的幾乎是一件不可能的事情，但是20年來(lái)我們所取得的研究成果讓我們看到了一線(xiàn)曙光,。”
“上個(gè)世紀(jì)八十年代中期,，科學(xué)家們基于五十年代的發(fā)現(xiàn)針對(duì)DNA結(jié)構(gòu)以及基因代碼所做的研究引發(fā)了一場(chǎng)徹底性的革命，并且顛覆了我們對(duì)例如昆蟲(chóng)這樣的簡(jiǎn)單有機(jī)生物的認(rèn)識(shí),。隨后科學(xué)家們又發(fā)現(xiàn)了人體中居然存在控制最簡(jiǎn)單的有機(jī)物生長(zhǎng)的基因與遺傳機(jī)制,。根據(jù)這一發(fā)現(xiàn)，我們認(rèn)為如果對(duì)有機(jī)生物未生長(zhǎng)的大腦進(jìn)行研究將會(huì)有助于了解大腦的生長(zhǎng)過(guò)程,。”
戴維·普萊斯是發(fā)育神經(jīng)生物學(xué)教授,，他在愛(ài)丁堡大學(xué)的研究小組是世界上僅有的24個(gè)致力于研究基因如何影響大腦發(fā)育課題的研究組織之一。
