2013-05-01 11:00:59
We are, in principle, what our brain decides we are. It is not a simple thought because, going further down the scale, our being is not unique and indivisible but is dispersed among an immensely large set of neurons that communicate with each other through electrical and chemical signals. We could compare our brain, and our being, to an enormous communications center that controls everything from the smallest movement to the most hidden of our secrets.
Understanding what communications between neurons are like at a molecular level is the task of neuroscientists such as Mairena Martin Lopez, our guest today. Mairena Martín is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Castilla – La Mancha and principal investigator of the Neurochemistry Group of Ciudad Real (GNCR), a group formed by a group of scientists that tries to unravel specific aspects of chemical communication between neurons and their relationship with various diseases.
The objective of GNCR research is to understand how certain molecules that act as neuronal messengers behave and their relationship with other receptor molecules that receive information on the surface of cells. When this relationship is not correct, communication between neurons is broken and degenerative diseases can arise, some of which, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, have devastating effects on the people who suffer from them and their families.
To understand what these molecular relationships are like, Mairena Martín gives a very graphic example. “Let’s imagine,” she says, “that the messengers we study, glutamate and adenosine, are like letters that contain messages for the various components inside the neuron to act on.” That action can be part of an order to move a muscle, a bit of information about an idea, or a request to search for a memory. “The letter has been sent from one neuron and it reaches the surface of another neuron where it is picked up by a molecular postman (receiver) whose task is to distribute the letters among their corresponding recipients distributed throughout the cell interior. “Those recipients (molecules) inside will read the message and act accordingly.”
This chain of events takes place continuously between the neurons of our body and is executed with sublime efficiency. However, sometimes mistakes happen. A letter may not reach the postman, the number of letters may be excessive for his delivery capacity, there may be an excessive number of postmen and they interfere with his distribution work, it could also happen that the recipient does not exists or that, if it exists, it misinterprets the message and does not correctly perform the function requested. In short, as happens in the information transmission chain in our daily lives, we can say that any failure can prevent the message from correctly reaching its destination. We are, then, faced with a communication problem that, in the case of neuronal relationships, can have very diverse consequences, ranging from a temporary episode of memory loss to the destruction of the neuron and the permanent loss of cognitive abilities.
One of the interests of the Ciudad Real Neurochemistry Group is to study how these “neural postmen” behave in patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Pick’s, Parkinson’s and other dementias. Since the neurochemical study involves the use of tissues and, logically, it is not advisable to extract brain samples from living people, the studies are carried out postmortem on the brains of people who have died as a result of these pathologies.
Understanding these mechanisms and determining how neuronal relationships occur at a molecular level are the basis for the development of future medications that, if not possible to cure, at least lessen the effects and improve the lives of patients suffering from degenerative diseases.
I invite you to listen to Mairena Martin Lopez in Talking with Scientists.
REFERENCES
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