Erika Augustine: Challenges of Rare Childhood Neurological Disorders Exemplified by Batten Diseases
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
Release Date: 09/19/2024
Roshan Cools: Dopamine’s Roles in Cognitive Control, Motivation, Decision-Making, ADHD, and PD
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
Dopamine is best known as a neurotransmitter involved in the experiencing of pleasure and reward, and for its role in addiction to drugs, gambling, food, etc. But dopamine is also very important in the brain’s ability to evaluate computational tradeoffs (cost versus benefit) and make decisions. In this episode Roshan Cools a Professor of cognitive neuropsychiatry at Radbout University in the Netherlands talks about how dopamine normally controls the neuronal circuits in the striatum and prefrontal cortex that regulate motivation and cognitive control. By combining PET imaging to...
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Maryanne Garry: Misinformation, Disinformation, False Memories, AI, and Our Future
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
In this episode I talk with Professor Maryanne Garry at the University of Waikato New Zealand about several interrelated realms of human cognition that are fundamental to changes in the behaviors of individuals and social groups as influenced by electronic media and artificial intelligence. Dr. Garry has devoted her career to understanding how memories of one’s past experiences can be distorted, how false information can become engrained in one’s system of beliefs. She talks about individual and collective memories, and the brain’s source monitoring systems and how they are...
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Michal Schwartz: How Immune System Cells Promote Brain Health and Recovery From Damage
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
It had long been thought that the brain was ‘immunologically privileged’ (physically separated from the immune system). However, this dogma was overturned by a series of discoveries including those made by Professor Michal Schwartz at the Weizmann Institute. In this episode I talk with Michal about the different types of immune cells that are located in ‘immunological niches’ of the brain (choroid plexus, perivascular space, meninges..) and how these cells play critical roles in maintaining normal brain health and function (neurogenesis, synaptic plasticity, learning and memory)....
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Diego Mendoza-Halliday: How the Brain Stays on Task - Attention, Noise Filtering and Working Memory
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
Throughout our waking hours neural networks in our brains are processing incoming information, particularly sights and sounds, integrating those inputs with stored information, making decisions, and executing responses. Staying on task requires that we attend to the details of the task while filtering out ‘noise’. In this episode I talk with Diego Mendoza-Halliday at the University of Pittsburgh about visual working memory – what it is, what neuronal circuits are involved, and how it works. His experiments involve recording of neuronal activity in prefrontal cortex and other brain...
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Thomas Hartung: Merging Brain Organoid and AI Technologies to Accelerate Basic and Applied Research
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
Professor Thomas Hartung has made a major impact in biomedical research by developing and promoting alternatives to animal research. His efforts are leading to more ethical and efficient approaches to basic and applied research in the fields of environmental toxicology, drug development, and neuroscience. In this episode I talk with Thomas about two major flourishing technologies – brain organoids and artificial intelligence – and how they are being rapidly incorporated into both basic and translational research. He provides an historical perspective on the overzealous and...
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Magdalena Götz: Direct Conversion of Astrocytes Into Neurons – Progress and Therapeutic Potential
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
Someday it may be possible to restore neuronal networks that have been lost or damaged by brain injury or in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. There are as many astrocytes in the human brain as there are neurons and the astrocytes generally do not die in brain injuries and neurodegenerative disorders. Professor Magdalena Götz has shown that astrocytes can be converted directly into neurons using molecular biology technologies to manipulate a few transcription factors that switch cell fate. These new neurons grow and form synapses with each...
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Antonio Di leva: Fractal Patterns and the Brain - Applications in Basic and Clinical Neuroscience
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
The Euclidean geometry that we learned in our primary education concerns man-made shapes such as rectangles, triangles, and perfect circles. However the shapes of molecules, cells, and organ systems (and their dynamic changes over time) are more complex. Some biological structures exhibit fractal geometry which is defined as “shapes and patterns that appear similar at different scales” (recursive iteration). Examples of biological structures exhibiting fractal geometry include the branches and roots of trees, blood vessels, lung airways, and the dendritic arbors of neurons. In this episode...
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Stephan Sigrist: Dietary Spermidine, Neuroplasticity, Aging, and Brain Health
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
Polyamines are small organic molecules that are acquired in the diet and can also be synthesized in cells. Spermidine is a polyamine that is increasingly recognized as playing important roles in counteracting aging. Foods with high amounts of spermidine include whole grains, broccoli, and natto (fermented soybeans). Professor Stephan Sigrist at the Free University of Berlin who is widely known for his fundamental contributions to understanding how specific proteins and their interactions control the rapid release and reuptake of neurotransmitters at the presynaptic active zone. In this...
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Jon Simons: Reality Monitoring- How the Brain Distinguishes Between Imagination and Reality
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
In the moment most people can readily distinguish between information that is coming into the brain from their senses and what information their brain is generating. However, when recalling information stored in the brain’s neuronal networks the ability to distinguish between what was real and what was imagined becomes more problematic. How does the brain keep track of what we actually experienced in the past and what we imagined happened? In this episode Jon Simons who is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge talks about his research that is...
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Keqiang Ye: From Gut to Brain – Rogue Protein Fragments in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases
Brain Ponderings podcast with Mark Mattson
In this episode Emory University and Chinese Academy of Sciences Professor Keqiang Ye talks about his fascinating and ground-breaking trail of discoveries that have revealed previously unknown mechanism responsible for the production and accumulation of damaging fragments of the APP and Tau proteins in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and the alpha-synuclein protein in Parkinson’s disease (PD). He discovered an enzyme called AEP that cleaves Tau and alpha-synuclein into self-aggregating toxic fragments. Eliminating or disabling AEP can prevent the disease process and preserve brain function...
info_outlineThere are approximately 7000 rare diseases each affecting fewer than 200,000 Americans. Most rare disorders are caused by gene mutations, manifest in childhood, include neurological problems, and progress rapidly resulting in death in the first several decades of life. Examples include fragile X and Rett syndromes, some childhood epilepsies, Batten diseases, and several types of ataxias, In most instances there are no treatments that slow or reverse the disease process. In this episode I talk with Professor Erika Augustine who is the Associate Chief Science Officer and Director of the Clinical Trials Unit at the Kennedy – Krieger Institute which is devoted to research on and treatment of neurological conditions caused by genetic disorders, birth complications, or traumatic injuries with a focus on children and adolescents. Dr. Augustine talks about the scope of the problems faced by patients with a rare disorder, their families, neurologists, government agencies, and the pharmaceutical industry. To exemplify both the challenges and progress towards effective treatments Dr. Augustine focuses on Batten diseases caused by mutations that impair lysosome functions and cause severe progressive neurological deficits that begin early in life. An effective treatment for one of the Batten diseases was recently approved by the FDA providing one of the first successes in moving from basic research to the clinic.
LINKS:
Dr. Augustine’s biography in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erika_F._Augustine
Kennedy – Krieger Institute:
https://www.kennedykrieger.org/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwl6-3BhBWEiwApN6_ksQGX9fZCTAZpUSzJNw4sHdr2EyRmm_d3tYPHzQpAEOpBuC0uDGZVRoCSGQQAvD_BwE
Batten Diseases Clinical Trials:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7736171/pdf/nihms-1641434.pdf
Enzyme replacement therapy for CLN2 Batten disease: https://www.pedneur.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0887-8994%2820%2930149-1
Gene therapy for rare neurological disorders:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8527017/pdf/fnmol-14-695937.pdf