UND becomes the new "frontier" of Brain Research

The UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences is embarking on a journey to become a national leader in the quest to discover new knowledge of how the brain works at its most basic level, and, ultimately, the causes of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and the underlying mechanisms of drug addiction.

Research aimed at these problems, it is hoped, will lead to more effective and preventative treatment measures.

The first steps in this journey are evidenced by:

a $10.3 million federal grant for the “Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE),”

a federal award of $3.8 million for a microPET (positron emission tomography) scanner to be used in the study of the brain at the cellular and molecular levels, and

a federal award of $3 million to construct a new neuroscience research facility dedicated to brain research.

“We are committed to identifying and pursuing those areas where we can excel and make significant contributions,” said H. David Wilson, medical school dean and vice president for health affairs at UND. “We cannot be all things to all people, so we must focus on a few select areas where we can carve out a niche and fill it such as rural health care, innovative medical education which responds to society’s needs, and now neuroscience research.”

North Dakota is an appropriate “laboratory” for neuroscience research: similar to other agricultural states, it has a “quite high” incidence of Parkinson’s disease, according to Manuchair Ebadi, associate vice president for health affairs and associate dean for research and program development at the medical school.

The prevalence of Parkinson’s disease has been attributed to both longevity and the use of agricultural chemicals, Ebadi said, adding that members of the state’s largest minority group, American Indians, also experience a high incidence of Parkinson’s.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the National Institute of Drug Abuse, North Dakota also has the dubious distinction of ranking first in the nation, per capita, in all forms of drug addiction, especially amphetamine and cocaine, he said. The incidence of Parkinson’s disease increases with drug addiction.

“Thinking big” positions UND to be national leader in research

“Miracles happen to those who believe in miracles,” says Manuchair (“Mike”) Ebadi, associate dean for research and program development at the medical school.

“I think big and dream big, and then I work hard to make it come true.”

The “miracle” he refers to is the UND medical school’s selection by the federal government as one of the few in the country to receive a $2.5 million grant for a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner and a cyclotron. An additional $1.3 million completes the funding package to cover related costs of preparing the lab and hiring a radiochemist to operate the equipment.

The extremely sophisticated PET scanner will allow biomedical researchers to conduct cutting-edge investigations into neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and into the underlying mechanisms in the brain which lead to drug-seeking behavior.

“It is basically a special kind of camera (like the Hubble Space Telescope) which takes pictures” of the inner regions of the brain, Ebadi explains, giving researchers a view of how the brain functions.

Through the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the government has funded the placement of the highly sophisticated research equipment in the Center of Excellence in Neuroscience at the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences one of only a handful of sites in the country to receive this equipment.

As a partner in the network of universities and others conducting this type of research, the UND medical school is in the company of the prestigious: University of California-Los Angeles, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the University of Colorado, Oregon Health Sciences University, Emory University, the University of Pennsylvania, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of South Florida, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Ebadi has been appointed a member of the National Nuclear Imaging Infrastructure Network by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Counter Technology Assessment Center. In this capacity, he is working to acquire a $6 million grant for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) for the medical school and the Parkinson’s disease initiative with the MeritCare Health System in Fargo. SPECT may be used to diagnose Parkinson’s disease before it becomes manifest as a motor deficit.

“I have a dream, but it is not an empty dream,” he said. He credits the distinction the medical school has achieved to “thinking associated with good science.

The reason UND was selected to receive the rare technology “has to do with our capacity” to conduct research of the quality and caliber the government requires, Ebadi maintains.

The Center of Excellence in Neuroscience is intended to make UND nationally visible and competitive in brain research. To that end, five highly qualified scientists from throughout the United States – from Stanford, the National Institutes of Health (Institute of Aging, and Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke), Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Vanderbilt University, and Case Western Reserve – have been recruited to function as a team, or a “cluster.” Each member is working on a specific aspect of the research project. The team may eventually grow to 30 neuroscientists.

Currently being built by CTI in Tennessee, the PET scanner is expected to be delivered in late summer and become fully operational in February 2004. To make its new home ready in the medical school’s basement, work is under way to “build a bunker,” as Ebadi dubs it, by reinforcing the concrete floor and walls to 18 inches thick and readying nearby space for a “hot lab,” where radioactive material will be purified, and a cyclotron for driving the PET scanner.

On arrival, the 120-ton cyclotron will be lowered into place through the ceiling of the basement in an area where the building does not rise above ground level.

Examining dopamine “tracks” in the brain & looking for ways to protect neurons

The brains of people with Parkinson’s lack dopamine, a chemical that is necessary for movement. Researchers at the UND medical school are studying four “tracks” in the brain that deliver dopamine in an effort to determine their individual functions.

They will use experimental animal models to uncover new information about the area of the brain where dopamine is synthesized and stored.

These dopaminergic tracks “do different things,” Mike Ebadi said, and “you can design a drug to block the action that produces the undesirable effect. For the Parkinson’s patient, thinking is preserved but movement is not controlled; for the Alzheimer’s patient, movement is controlled but thinking is adversely affected.

“If you know which ones are involved in addiction, you can develop a mechanism for blocking the sensations that cause drug-seeking behavior.”

For the drug user, the initial lure is the first reaction to the drug, a sense of euphoria, the neuroscientist explains. After the user becomes hooked on the drug, he or she continues to take the substance to avoid the dysphoria, or feeling of agony, the addiction causes.

“If we know how neurons are damaged, we could develop ways to protect them,” Ebadi said.

The brain is “the last portion of the body” to be intensively studied, he noted.

Ebadi is clearly determined to direct the medical school’s search toward the goal of understanding the nature of and combating the effects of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other devastating and progressive diseases.

“By providing neuroprotection,” he said, “we can help individuals with neurodegenerative disorders.”

Construction to start on neuroscience facility

This fall, ground will be broken on a new $3 million-plus, state-of-the-art facility to house neuroscience research at the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Federal funds are financing most of the cost of constructing the 14,000-square-foot structure, which is expected to be completed in the fall of 2004.

The building, to be located at Fifth Avenue North and Hamline Street, just west of the medical school complex, will provide laboratories for eight neuroscientists and their assistants. The neuroscientists will be members of the basic science and clinical departments of the medical school. All will have received grant funding to work on various aspects of the research.

“It will be the best research building at UND,” says Dean H. David Wilson. With huge labs and offices lining the exterior walls, the facility will have modern support systems, including central core equipment bearing central vacuum and central nitrogen, and a neuroscience library.

NOTE: The design of the new neuroscience research facility is the result of a collaboration between the architectural firms of Johnson, Laffen, Galloway (JLG) of Grand Forks and Hammel, Green & Abrahamson, Inc. (HGA) of Minneapolis. This architect’s rendering was provided by HGA.