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HealthWatch: UCSF Researchers Make Brain Discovery Dr. Kim Mulvihill UCSF researchers may have discovered a new approach for treating brain disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's through efforts to treat a childhood disease. Niemann Pick Type C usually strikes very young children, and causes a progressive deterioration of the nervous system. It interferes with the child's ability to metabolize cholesterol, and brain cells accumulate fat and die. "It's a 100% fatal disease," said Dr. Synthia Mellon, a UCSF researcher. "All children and adults who have this disease will die from it, and there is no treatment for this disease." Researchers looked at mice from a family that naturally develops the disease. The animals at first couldn't perform the simplest task of crawling across a piece of string. But with a single dose of an important hormone, a mouse could complete the task with no apparent difficulty. The hormone is a neurosteroid called allopregnanolone. The researchers discovered that mice with Niemann Pick Type 3 made less and less of it, and it appears to play a role in how our nervous system develops. A single treatment of the hormone provided dramatic results, and researchers found that the earlier they administered the treatment the longer the mouse lived. It's not a cure, but the treatment did delay the onset of neurological problems. The researchers caution that their findings must still be evaluated in humans, but their research could have implications for treating other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. "I think it opens up a huge area of investigation that has previously been untapped," Mellon said. » 07-21-2004 SOURCE: KPIX-TV 5, CA http://tinyurl.com/4qoqg * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn