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Will we ever know how our brains work? Mission Impossible

UCD Conway investigator, Dr Keith Murphy told pupils at a recent Science Alive seminar that scientists are interested in finding the answers to questions such as how our bodies work, what is going on in disease, and how drug therapies can be designed.

Dr Murphy works in the area of neuropharmacology and his lecture focused on diseases of brain function. Brain function is dependant on nerves talking to each other. Nerve cells differ from other types of cells because of the job they have to do.

Nerves need to communicate over long distances; a dendrite is their antenna; the axon is the communications wire and a synapse is the nerve connection. Serotonin is one example of the chemical or neurotransmitter used to convey messages.

Scientists can study nerves in culture by placing them in a dish containing nutrients and testing their activity by adding fluorescent dye. The colours the cells become show how active they are (red, active; blue, less active).

Scientists can use patterns of blood flow within the brain to study activity (MRI scan) or the patterns of electrical activity (EEG). Our brains are very complex organs with different areas having different functions.
 
Schizophrenia is an example of a condition affecting the prefrontal cortex. Murphy used the example of mining worker, Phineas Cage to explain to pupils how scientists learned about the role of the prefrontal cortex in controlling behaviour.

During an explosives accident, a packing rod was propelled through Phineas Cage’s eye and out the top of skull. Miraculously, he survived the incident but subsequently became very aggressive in his behaviour. The prefrontal cortex was the area of the brain damaged by the trajectory of the packing rod. Murphy also explained to the student audience that the prefrontal cortex also shows decreased activity corresponding to behavioural changes with long term exposure to drugs.

Alzheimer’s disease is the 4th leading cause of death in the country. It is increasing in prevalence with our aging population and now accounts for seventy percent of dementias. Alzheimer’s is a disease of memory function; it begins with memory impairment leading to memory failure and then total loss of intellectual function.

Our learning is made up of subconscious and conscious memories; leaning to walk or smile or cycle are skills learnt subconsciously while memorising facts is a conscious process. Scientists discovered that memories must first be formed and solidified before being stored. These actions occur in different parts of our brain. The hippocampus is where memories are formed and solidified while the cortex is the storage location.

In Alzheimer’s disease, there is a problem with information storage. Dr Murphy showed students self portraits of an artist who suffered from the disease. Uterwohlen painted various images of himself as the disease progressed over three decades from 1967 to 2000. His perception of himself deteriorated to abstract from photograph likeness.

The only treatment available currently targets the symptoms; slowing rather than stopping disease progression. Dr Murphy believes that if scientists can discover why nerves die in Alzheimer’s, drugs to block toxins or improve nerve survival will follow.

Podcast - Will we ever know how our brains work? Mission Impossible