A University of Nebraska Medical Center researcher, Wallace Thoreson, Ph.D., is one of the lead investigators in a study aimed at gaining a better understanding of how signals are transmitted in the brain. The research, which is reported in the current issue of Nature Neuroscience, could lay the necessary groundwork to develop new treatments for a variety of degenerative diseases of the eye and ear such as Usher’s syndrome and rod-cone dystrophy.
Dr. Thoreson, director of research and professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, worked with researchers from Yale University School of Medicine and Stony Brook University.
The group studied the sensory neurons involved in vision, balance, and hearing. They gained a better understanding of ribbons, specialized structures found in sensory neurons including photoreceptor cells, retinal bipolar cells, and hair cells involved in hearing and balance.
They examined the role of the ribbon by binding photo-sensitive molecules to the ribbon and then using a laser to produce highly localized damage to the ribbon.
They were able to determine that the ribbon plays a key role in releasing and resupplying vesicles, small membrane-enclosed sacks that can store or transport substances.
These experiments provide answers to fundamentally important question about how signals are transmitted from sensory neurons to higher visual centers in the brain, Dr. Thoreson said.
“An understanding of how these signals are transmitted can help us better understand the causes of neurodegenerative disease,” he said, “since many of these diseases originate with mis-regulation of the release from neurons.
“We are optimistic that we will eventually learn how to repair and restore damaged neurons by using stem cells, prosthetic devices and other mechanisms. But, before we can do this, it is necessary to understand how these nerve cells work normally.”
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