With $1.3 Million Grant, HMRI in Pasadena Will Focus on Glutamate's Role in Epilepsy

PASADENA -- The Huntington Medical Research Institutes been awarded a grant of $1.3 million from the National Institutes of Health to study the brain chemistry behind epilepsy and epileptic seizures. The research project will examine how imbalances in the critical amino acid glutamate might disrupt the flow of messages between brain cells. The project began last week and will continue for four years.

The grant will support and expand work by HMRI doctors Brian Ross and Keiko Kanamori who have been studying the brain chemistry of Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and other brain disorders at HMRI for 20 years using noninvasive magnetic resonance spectroscopy and imaging (MRS and MRI).

"The goal is to understand the mechanisms of epilepsy, which are not known, and create better treatments for this terrible disorder," Ross said.

"The NIH grant adds another important element to HMRI's research on neurological diseases devoted specifically to the study and treatment of epilepsy," said William Opel, Ph.D., executive director for the Institutes. "It builds on strengths developed at HMRI over the past 20 years and supports work in important new areas."

The grant will help Ross improve ways to use magnetic resonance spectroscopy to measure various chemicals and molecules in the brain. MRS displays charts showing the concentration in body tissues of various biochemical compounds instead of anatomical pictures of body tissues such as the brain.

Another important analytical method central to the new project is brain dialysis, developed by Dr. Kanamori and others to study brain fluids at the microscopic level where glutamate plays a crucial role in transmitting signals between nerve cells. There are as many as eight different points where glutamate affects message transmission, points where problems can occur.

"No one else in the world is studying the pivotal brain chemistry of glutamate with this combination of techniques or with the sophistication and focus of doctors Ross and Kanamori," Opel said. "This grant is an exciting boost for two talented researchers and the powerful tools they have developed."

The final year of the four-year NIH funding will support new carbon 13 MRS and MRI techniques under development at HMRI, which can analyze what's happening during a developing seizure in fractions of a second. The new program known as PASADENA, was developed by HMRI and Caltech.