Brain pioneers share Nobel prize


Monday, 9 October, 2000, 10:28 GMT 11:28 UK - Three scientists whose
discoveries shed light on the workings of the brain and nervous system have
been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Professors Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel were jointly
awarded the prize on Monday.

All three have opened up potential new avenues of treatment for brain
conditions such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.

The scientists share an award of just under $1m.

Signalling pathways

Professor Greengard, currently working at the Rockefeller University in the
US, has devoted more than 40 years working out how nerve cells communicate
between each other on a biochemical level.

In the 1970s, he revealed new information about the way the chemical
dopamine affects the brain. He managed to trace the signalling pathways
used by the chemical.

Professor Greengard's work has applications in the fight against many
conditions to which dopamine is key, such as Parkinson's, schizophrenia and
Alzheimer's.

Likewise, Dr Arvid Carlsson, Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology at the
University of Göteborg, Sweden, has also helped make huge strides forward
in helping doctors understand the importance and role of dopamine in the
brain - and ways in which drugs can influence the way the brain works.

Parkinson's breakthrough

His discoveries in the field have led to new effective treatments for
schizophrenia, depression and Parkinson's.

His studies in the mid-1950s at the University of Lund laid the groundwork
for the discovery of dopamine depletion in Parkinson's and subsequent
treatment with levadopa, which is still the principal drug used by doctors
to delay the disease's devastating advance.

In the late 1960's, Dr Carlsson's group developed the first clinically
active inhibitor of serotonin re-uptake (SSRI) for depression, zimelidine.

This research contributed to the development of SSRIs such as Prozac, now
one of the world's most popular drugs for the treatment of depressive
disorders.

Short-term memory

Professor Eric Kandel, from the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at
Columbia University in the US, has also worked extensively to uncover the
hidden processes that drive the human mind.

His discoveries have included the molecular mechanisms which lie under the
acquisition of memory, both short and long-term.

In the mid-1970s, Professor Kandel's team discovered the importance of the
neurotransmitter called serotonin to the memory process.

Their results showed that serotonin triggered a series of steps in which a
chemical reaction strengthened the electrical connections between neurons
in the brain for several minutes - the foundation of short-term memory.

Professor Kandel later found genes which appear vital in the conversion of
short to long-term memory.

Again, understanding these processes could help doctors one day unravel the
reason why memory is lost in conditions such as Alzheimer's, and could even
produce memory-enhancing drugs.


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