By Dave Paiz
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 13, 1998

Next week will focus on the brain

While UA students give their brains a rest next week, university neuroscientists will take part in Brain Awareness Week 1998, an educational outreach campaign promoting the benefits of brain research.

Now in its third year, Brain Awareness Week, March 16-22, will combine the efforts of the non-profit Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and the Society for Neuroscience.

"What we (scientists) have realized is that it's important to keep the public informed," said Paul St. John, an associate professor of cell biology and anatomy and president of the Society for Neuroscience's Tucson chapter. "If scientists don't do it, no one else is going to."

Brain Awareness activities planned next week include two free keynote talks and visits to elementary and high school classrooms and civic groups throughout the community.

St. John said Brain Awareness Week is part of a larger "Brain Month" campaign to show the public the "progress and promise" of neuroscience and to emphasize the need for increased research.

A steady decline in research funding has prompted the nationwide public appeal to keep elected officials interested in future neuroscientific research.

A report issued by the Society for Neuroscience states that 50 million Americans suffer from a permanent neurological disorder that impairs their daily functioning in some way.

"These are diseases that are very widespread," St. John said.

Addictions to drugs and alcohol, the onset of Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease, and an ever-widening range of mood disorders are among the more common manifestations of neurological dysfunction. Other conditions include spinal cord injuries, problems due to stroke, learning disabilities and chronic pain.

According to the report, America loses over $600 billion each year to brain-related diseases and injuries.

An estimated 4 million elderly citizens suffer from Alzheimer's disease to the tune of $100 billion each year in long-term health care costs.

"If we could just push back the onset (of Alzheimer's) by five years, we could save $50 billion," St. John stated in the report.

Neuroscientists studying Alzheimer's disease are realizing that genetics plays a major role in the onset of the crippling disorder.

"As we learn more about it we're blaming more and more on your genes," said Gary Wenk, a UA professor of neurology and psychology.

Wenk's research focuses on why some people are more prone than others to develop Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Wenk said longer life spans made possible by modern medicine are giving rise to degenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

He hopes to counteract the trend by developing new drugs to delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's and to treat those with existing symptoms.

"It will be possible to take a substance which will combat the effects of aging," Wenk said.

"I think the chances that would get us a one-year delay (in the onset of Alzheimer's) in the next five years are better than finding a total cure in the next five years," St. John said.

St. John's research deals with neurotransmitters and how and what types of chemical signals are sent to various places in the brain.

By studying how these chemical messages function in the brain, St. John said he hopes to better understand addiction to substances like nicotine.

Other UA neuroscientific research includes:

• Studying the development of the nervous system and how defects arise.
• The study of nervous systems in insects to obtain new insights into human systems.
• The study of motor control (movement).
• Studying medications that affect the nervous system such as painkillers without side effects.

"I'd like people to know that neuroscientists here are doing a balancing act," St. John said of his fellow colleagues involved with researching, teaching and public outreach.

Two of the UA's top neuroscientists will give keynote talks regarding their latest research March 23 at 7:30 p.m. in the Flandrau Science Center.

Neurobiology Professor Nicholas Strausfeld, who in 1995 won a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant, will discuss "What We Can Learn from Studying Fly Brains."

Professor Lynn Nadel, who heads the UA Psychology Department, will then reveal his findings on "Stress, Memory and the Brain."