MUNENDRA Aalmost 7 years ago

Scientists have developed a way to see brain cells talk -- to actually see neurons communicate in bright, vivid color. The new lab technique is set to provide long-needed answers about the brain and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and depression. Those answers will facilitate new and vastly improved treatments for conditions that have largely resisted scientists' efforts to understand them

Understanding Neurological Diseases To demonstrate the technique's effectiveness, Zhu's team in Charlottesville and colleagues in China have used it to visualize a poorly understood neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. "Acetylcholine has an important role in how we behave because it affects our memory and mood," Zhu explained. "It affects Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, emotions, depression, all kind of emotion-related diseases and mental problems." (Acetylcholine also plays critical roles elsewhere in the body, such as regulating insulin secretion in the pancreas and in controlling stress and blood pressure.) Drugs designed to combat Alzheimer's disease actually inhibit acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme that degrades acetylcholine, to boost the effect of diminishing acetylcholine released in the brain, Zhu said. But doctors haven't fully understood how the drugs work, and there's been no way to determine just how much inhibition is needed. "These drugs are not very effective," he said. "They only offer a minor improvement, and once you stop the drug [the symptoms] just seem much worse. So probably in trying to treat these patients, you temporarily enhance them but you actually make them even worse."