FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 19, 1999
CONTACT:
David G. Amaral, Ph.D.
(530) 757-8813
Carole Gan
(916)734-9040
UC DAVIS M.I.N.D. INSTITUTE FUNDS RESEARCH GRANTS
Grants aim to identify the biological basis of familial dyslexia, autism, Tourette's syndrome and other neurodevelopmental disorders; to establish an autism education outreach and brain library foundation; and to evaluate drug and cognitive therapies
(Sacramento, Calif.) - The M.I.N.D. Institute at UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center has awarded $870,000 in grants to researchers probing the biological bases of neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia, Tourette's syndrome, cerebral palsy, William's syndrome and autism. The M.I.N.D. Institute which stands for the Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, is a cooperative venture of dedicated community activists, many of whom are parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and clinicians and researchers at the University of California, Davis.
"This research grant program is our attempt to catalyze new research efforts and to establish an Institute without walls," says David G. Amaral, research director of the M.I.N.D Institute. "Grants have been awarded to some of the most productive laboratories both in the state of California and throughout the country. And this is just the first round of what is planned to be an annual funding program."
"The funded grants are of high scientific merit and are innovative and collaborative, involving two or more laboratories per project. They fund studies that use sophisticated neuroimaging and molecular biological and physiological techniques to uncover the underlying mechanisms of various neurodevelopmental disorders. The hope is that these data may lead to the development of new diagnostic or treatment techniques that would be used in M.I.N.D. Institute clinical programs."
The Scientific Advisory Board and the Executive Committee felt that some funds should be directed at evaluating the usefulness of proposed treatments in order to get rapid and reliable feedback to parents. One of the grants, therefore, will support two research teams who will carry out clinical trials of secretin, a natural hormone produced by the cells of the small intestine. Essential for proper digestion, secretin caused a stir in October 1998 when news broke that a small sampling of children with autism who were given secretin to test their pancreatic function also had improvements in behavior, eye contact, and language skills. Since then, interest from parents has skyrocketed, and a few leading centers throughout the United States have begun pilot studies to learn more about how secretin affects autism.
"Substantial skepticism surrounds this treatment," says Amaral, "but the M.I.N.D. Scientific Advisory Board and the Executive Committee believe it is important to conduct a rigorous scientific study to answer the many questions that remain about his potential treatment. These include determining whether the treatment is effective, who the most suitable candidates are, what the appropriate dosage is, how frequently should it be given, and what the long-term effects are. This is an important clinical trial that needs to be done to help bridge the gap between parents who desperately desire effective treatments and initial clinical reports that suggest potentially useful therapies. One strength of the M.I.N.D. Institute is its ability to pull together this research expertise and to rapidly provide investigators with resources to conduct the research."
The M.I.N.D. Institute is also committed to translating the latest research findings into the educational arena and to using modern scientific methods to evaluate the neurobiological bases of successful behavioral and drug treatments. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, for example, enables researchers to identify areas of the brain at work during specific activities and to compare data from normal patients with those who have a neurodevelopmental disorder. By evaluating brain and other physiologic data in different patient groups and by monitoring data before and after treatment, researchers hope to substantiate the effectiveness of therapy.
The researchers receiving grants and the details of their projects include:
Pauline A. Filipek of UC Irvine leads one of the teams. She is working with Edwin Cook, Jr. at the University of Chicago and William M. McMahon at the University of Utah. Robin Hansen at UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center leads the second research group and is working with Glenn Elliott from UC San Francisco. Drs. Filipek and Hansen can be reached through the public affairs office at UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center at (916) 734-9040.
Dan Geschwind and collaborators at UCLA will use a combination of powerful molecular biological techniques to determine the genetic basis of familial forms of dyslexia by studying Finnish families. The team plans to conduct a whole genome scan of individuals in a number of dyslexic families to find a chromosomal region or regions that contribute to developmental dyslexia. Since there may be an increased incidence of dyslexia or other more subtle language-based learning disorders in families who have autistic children, mutations in genes uncovered in this study may also play a role in the susceptibility to autism and related disorders, in addition to other neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Geschwind can be reached at (310) 794-6570. Research physicians Aarno Palotie and Leena Peltonen are also collaborating on the study.
Eric Courchesne at UC San Diego along with collaborators at UCLA, UC Davis, the University of Chicago, Salk Institute and Stanford University will use structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques to study the brains of children with autism, Asperger's syndrome or William's syndrome. In recent years, increasing evidence suggests that autism involves subtle abnormalities in the brain. Males with autism, for example, are known to have fewer cells in brain areas that control motor action, attention, learning and language while other brain areas appear enlarged. Some patients also have abnormally small and densely packed cells in the parts of the brain that control emotional responses and critical parts of memory formation. This study aims to continue to identify these neuroanatomical abnormalities in the brain and to distinguish the subtle differences that occur in children with related disorders such as mental retardation.
Dr. Courchesne can be reached at (619) 551-7929. Other members of the research team include Allan L. Reiss at Stanford University (650) 498-4538, Edwin H. Cook, Jr. and Catherine Lord at the University of Chicago, Susan Bookheimer (310) 794-6386 and Marian Sigman (310) 825-0180 at UCLA, Ursula Bellugi at the Salk Institute (619) 453-4100, x 1222 and David G. Amaral at UC Davis (530) 757-8813.
Neal Swerdlow of UC San Diego and colleagues at Harvard University will use sophisticated electromyography and brain imaging to study information processing abnormalities in the brains of children with Tourette's Syndrome, a familial disorder characterized by motor and vocal tics. Studies suggest that some patients with Tourette's syndrome are unable to normally inhibit or "gate" intrusive sensory, cognitive and motor information. The sensitivity of the brain to inhibitory signals 30 to 500 milliseconds before a startling event may be a useful marker for understanding specific abnormalities in brain activity in Tourette's syndrome. Brain regions responsible for diminished sensitivity to these signals will be identified via functional brain imaging. Neal Swerdlow can be reached at (619) 543-6270.
Susan Bookheimer and collaborators at UCLA will use functional brain imaging to determine whether new treatments for dyslexia changes brain function. They will perform functional MRI scans on dyslexic children before and after they undergo a new program that attempts to alter the way the brain processes auditory information. This approach uses computers to successively improve the children's ability to discriminate sounds that occur rapidly, a skill that is impaired in children with dyslexia. The team includes Susan Bookheimer and Marian Sigman from UCLA and Lorie Humphrey from the H.E.L.P. Group, who will be recruiting, testing and treating children from the Summit View School in LA. Bookheimer can be reached at (310) 794-6386 and Marian Sigman at (310) 825-0180.
Eric Courchesne from UC San Diego along with UC Davis neuroscientists, Edward (Ted) Jones and David Amaral, will establish an autism outreach and brain library foundation, which will act under the direction of a parent-neuroscientist governing board. The goals of the foundation are to educate parents and parent organizations about the importance of donating brain tissue from autistic individuals at the time of death for research and to establish the mechanism whereby brain tissues are quickly obtained, preserved and safely stored for use in research studies. And like a library, this precious and invaluable resource on autism will be made available to the research community.
Erick Courschesne can be reached at (619) 551-7929, and David G. Amaral can be reached at UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center at (530) 757-8813.
Judith Grether and team members at the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program will use ultra-micro immunoassay techniques to study more than 50 biological markers in archived newborn blood spots to identify whether any characteristic patterns exist in children with autism or mental retardation of unknown cause. Markers of inflammation, selected autoimmune conditions, and coagulation abnormalities discriminate well between children with cerebral palsy and controls. These factors have been suggested to play an etiologic role in other developmental disorders as well. Judith Grether can be reached at (510) 597-2334.
Allan Reiss at Stanford University along with collaborators at the University of Iowa, UC San Francisco, and Geneva University aim to understand how complex linkages among genetic, environmental and neurobiological variables contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders in children. The team will work to increase the knowledge of the pathogenesis of neurobehavior and neurodevelopmental disability in individuals with Turner syndrome and velo-cardio-facial syndrome. Turner syndrome will be used as a model for understanding the occurrence of serious psychopathology and autistic behavior in the context of mild cognitive delay. Dr. Reiss can be reached at (650) 498-4538.
Editor: For full abstracts on the grant awards, visit the M.I.N.D. Institute Web site at http://neuroscience.ucdavis.edu/mind/
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