Associate Professor Peter Dodd and his team from UQ's School of Molecular and Microbial Sciences has secured a five-year, $1.23 million grant from the United States' biomedical funding arm, the National Institute of Health (NIH) to find out.
Chronic alcohol abuse kills brain cells in the front of the brain, which affect planning, and social interactions and inhibitions.
The UQ team with collaborators from The University of Texas, want to find out what makes these cells so vulnerable.
Professor Dodd said his team was analysing brain tissue from dead alcoholics, mostly Anglo-Celtic men who've averaged more than 10 drinks a day.
The group analyses samples using a microarray analysis, a process they pioneered with human brain samples in 2000.
From a DNA sample applied to a microscope slide, the microarray computer produces about 50,000 coloured spots showing which genes are expressed or switched on in the sample.
“What we're trying to find out is, what's different in the superior frontal cortex [front of brain] when you compare alcoholics with controls, that's not different in a spared area of the brain,” Dr Dodd said.
“In that way we can start to find those messages that show altered expression in the area of the brain that shows the pathology.”
He said the microarray analysis could be useful for many neurological diseases
“It's got general applicability to neurological diseases, because most neurological diseases also exhibit regional selectivity of pathology.”
Professor Dodd said researching proteins was the next step as that would tell them why some cells have impaired function.
He has also teamed up with United Kingdom colleagues to find out why people get addicted to alcohol — with the long-term goal of producing a drug that could reduce alcohol dependence.
Source: University of Queensland
Related stories:
Brain physiology of prenatal alcohol exposure uncovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Alberta researchers have identified several regions of the brain that appear to be altered in children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.
Scientists' findings may lead to new drug-abuse treatments
Increased connections among brain cells caused by excessive drug use may represent the body's defense mechanism to combat addiction and related behaviors, scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
Alcohol consumption can cause too much cell death, fetal abnormalities
The initial signs of fetal alcohol syndrome are slight but classic: facial malformations such as a flat and high upper lip, small eye openings and a short nose.
Teens underestimate risk, overestimate vehicle, highway safety in motor vehicle accidents
Most teens' attitudes regarding trauma-related injuries, particularly those due to motor vehicle crashes, reflect an sense of invincibility and focus on fate rather than choice, according to new research published in the August issue of the
Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Nano vaccine for hepatitis B shows promise for third world
Chronic hepatitis B infects 400 million people worldwide, many of them children. Even with three effective vaccines available, hepatitis B remains a stubborn, unrelenting health problem, especially in Africa and other developing areas. The disease and its complications cause an estimated 1 million deaths globally each year.
Nature or nurture -- Are you who your brain chemistry says you are?
Researchers using positron emission tomography (PET) have validated a long-held theory that individual personality traits—particularly reward dependency—are connected to brain chemistry, a finding that has implications for better understanding and treating substance abuse and other addictive behaviors.
Research reveals why some smokers become addicted with their first cigarette
New research from The University of Western Ontario reveals how the brain processes the 'rewarding' and addictive properties of nicotine, providing a better understanding of why some people seemingly become hooked with their first smoke. The research, led by Steven Laviolette of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry could lead to new therapies to prevent nicotine dependence and to treat nicotine withdrawal when smokers try to quit. The paper is published in the August 6th
Journal of Neuroscience.
Epilepsy drug may help alcoholics recover from dependence, small study suggests
It's a Catch-22 of the highest order. People with alcohol problems often use alcohol to get to sleep -- but it actually keeps them from getting good-quality sleep all night long.
