Two prominent neuroscientists recently conducted a seminar on sleep, epilepsy and strokes. Kim Dalli gets the low-down on research into the most complex organ – the brain.

A way to block epilepsy

Vincenzo Crunelli from Cardiff University specialises in two different but connected areas – sleep disorders and what is known as absence epilepsy.

He starts off our interview with a disclaimer: under strict instructions from Scotland Yard, we are unable to photograph him due to threats from anti-vivisectionists.

Thanks to funding from the Malta Council for Science and Technology and the charity Epilepsy Research UK, Prof. Cru-nelli is developing a powerful technique, optogenetics, which is changing the way we treat epilepsy.

An absence seizure causes a short period of “blanking out” or staring into space without the convulsions generally associated with epilepsy.

In the past, schoolchildren with this condition were labelled lazy and reprimanded for not paying attention.

Prof. Crunelli explains that absence seizures can be a drastic disorder because, apart from having up to 400 seizures in a day, these children find learning more difficult.

Additionally, most drugs do not work by themselves in 50 per cent of the children but doctors tend not to prescribe more than one drug to children to avoid side effects.

The brain has nerve cells which excite the next nerve cells in the chain and others which inhibit them. Epilepsy has always been thought of as a disorder related to the former activity.

My grandfather always used to tell us to read a few moments before going to bed

“But what we found is an increased activity of those cells which produce inhibition – the opposite of what we previously believed.

The market is too small for drug companies to enter the field and develop medicines which block this activity. However, the technique of optogenetics – which uses light to control neurons – has proved to be effective.

A little algae in the sea has a particular protein that, when activated by certain lights, allows ions to move in and out of neurons. Scientists are taking the algae’s DNA and injecting it into nerve cells.

When light is shone on the nerve cells, the protein allows ions to move in and out, allowing scientists to either excite the nerve cells or block the activity.

“We work with optic fibres to shine light into the area where we have put this protein. We can therefore block the absence seizure by selectively targeting particular cells and not all the neurons, such as with deep brain stimulation.”

In the field of sleep, Prof. Crunelli has discovered how dependent memory consolidation is on sleep.

“My grandfather always used to tell us to read and learn things a few moments before going to bed because it would help us remember them better the day after.

“He was blooming right!”

Preventing stroke damage

Robert Fern from Plymouth University works on two disorders which are both caused by a lack of blood supply to the brain – strokes and cerebral palsy.

Blood delivers oxygen to the brain, and loss of blood supply leads to brain damage.

“I’m interested in the early events which occur during the brain injury. My philosophy is that we have to understand how the injuries are occurring if we are to prevent them happening.”

With strokes, a loss of blood supply leads to the very rapid death of cells such as neurons due to the release of a chemical called glutamate, which is involved in communication between neurons.

During a stroke, this is released in high concentrations and builds up outside the cells. The cells become overstimulated and die rapidly.

Malta should be very proud of the research done at the University of Malta

Prof. Fern is researching how to limit the release of glutamate by interrupting the earliest phase of a stroke, which is often preceded by symptoms such as loss of feeling in the hands. The idea is to give patients a prophylactic drug to prevent stoke damage in their brains, even if they do have a loss of blood supply.

“We do this with heart disease – patients at risk are put on blood thinning agents to reduce the chances of having a heart attack or suffering an injury.

“But we don’t have anything like that for stroke – although they’re actually quite similar diseases. Both involve loss of blood supply to an important organ.”

He says stroke research is decades behind heart research and is chronically underfunded, even though stroke is the second largest killer in the western world. While with strokes the brain’s grey matter suffers damage, it is the white matter which is damaged in cerebral palsy.

The damage is also related to a release of glutamate but the way it is released is different. Prof. Fern is trying to understand the earliest triggering events.

Usually, by the time there is a diagnosis, the damage has actually occurred. But scientists are becoming very good at assessing the foetus at risk of suffering injury through biomarkers in the blood.

“We are collaborating with the University of Malta, which has invested in a lot of funding in developing cutting-edge research, where, using very powerful microscopes, you can look inside the brain and at individual cells to see how they’re damaged during ischemic strokes.

“I don’t think there’s any other lab in Europe that can do that. Malta should be very proud of the research done at the University of Malta.”

The two neuroscientists were invited over by the Malta Neuroscience Network, coordinated by University of Malta professor Giuseppe Di Giovanni.