Is Overactive Bladder A 'Bladder Itch'? Identification Of Itch Specific Pathways Within The Bladder
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$720,585.00
Summary
Overactive bladder is a leading cause of nocturia, urgency and incontinence. These symptoms arise from sensory nerve fibres in the bladder. We have identified key irritant mechanisms, including the bile acid receptor TGR5 and Mrgpr family, thought to only exist in the skin, also innervate the bladder. We hypothesis that the clinical entity overactive bladder, is triggered by pathological activation of bladder afferents by such irritants and that overactive bladder is essentially a bladder itch.
Strategies To Restore Bladder Control After Peripheral Nerve Injury
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$519,967.00
Summary
A major complication of pelvic surgery is loss of bladder control, mainly due to nerve injury at the time of removing cancerous tissue. This has a big effect on quality of life. Very little research has been conducted on injured bladder nerves. In this project we will investigate what happens to bladder nerves after injury and how we can make them regrow. We will also investigate if undamaged bladder nerves can be made to compensate for the lost function.
Local Sleep In The Awake Brain: An Underlying Cause Of Neurobehavioural Deficits In Sleep Apnea?
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$582,330.00
Summary
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep disorder which significantly impacts daytime functioning leading to excessive sleepiness, and problems with attention and thinking. Currently, the causes for cognitive impairment in OSA (including attentional lapses and performance deficits) are poorly understood. In the awake state, groups of neurons can briefly go “offline” as they do in sleep. These periods of “local sleep” may explain impaired task performance in OSA.
Role Of Sensory Neurons In Obstruction-induced Bladder Overactivity
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$340,986.00
Summary
About 20% of people over the age of 40 have the clinical syndrome of an “overactive bladder”, which causes symptoms of urgency, frequency and incontinence. The mechanisms causing bladder overactivity are not known. This project will identify sensory neurons, which become overexcited, and determine which mediators and ionic channels are responsible for this. Our new data will identify selective pharmacological targets for new therapies and diagnostic tools for these distressing bladder disorders.
Methylation And The Risk Of Urothelial Cell Cancer
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$703,628.00
Summary
Why don’t we run prevention programs for urinary tract cancers like we do for others? It’s because we don’t know which lifestyle factors, except smoking, are important to cancers of the renal pelvis, ureters, bladder and urethra. We plan to use new technology to measure the ‘epigenome’, the part of the genome that turns genes on or off. This may explain how lifestyle factors influence what genes do, and we hope our findings will help to develop future prevention strategies for these cancers.
Can Persistent Bladder Pain Be Treated By Targeting TRPA1 Expressing Nociceptors?
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$687,730.00
Summary
Persistent visceral pain is extremely difficult to treat and manage. To solve this problem we need to understand how pain nerves in internal organs differ from those in skin and muscle. We have discovered a pain-detecting molecule TRPA1 in bladder sensory nerves. We aim to show how bladder inflammation changes the function of these bladder pain detectors and test a new way of selectively anesthetising them. We also will use a new technique to study how the bladder lining detects pain.
Schizophrenia is a serious and debilitating psychotic illness often characterized by delusions: fixed, false beliefs that preoccupy the patient and affect behaviour, and which are resistant to current drug treatments. This project investigates dysfunctions in belief mechanisms that allow delusions to form and be maintained. This will help clinicians design more effective programs of cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis by allowing more focussed interventions to reduce delusions.
Investigating The Mechanisms That Increase Nerve-evoked Vasoconstriction Following Spinal Cord Injury
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$372,547.00
Summary
People with spinal cord injury not only lose control of their arms and legs but also lose control of their bladder and bowel. They also have poor control of blood pressure and an overfull bladder or bowel can lead to dangerously high blood pressure. In this project, we are investigating how this abnormal high blood pressure is generated. The aim is to develop treatments which target the mechanisms which increase the blood pressure responses elicited by the bladder and bowel.
Preclinical Relaxin Therapy To Reverse Cardiac Fibrosis And Gain Functional Benefits
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$724,754.00
Summary
Cardiac fibrosis is a key factor promoting heart disease and onset of complications including arrhythmias and heart failure. There is urgent and unmet need of drugs that can reverse fibrosis. By documenting anti-fibrotic action of a peptide hormone relaxin, CIA and his team will test therapeutic effect of relaxin in heart disease models focusing on fibrosis-reversal and functional gain, particularly arrhythmias. This work would promote development of relaxin as a new cardiovascular drug.
Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in Australia, accounting for 36% of all deaths in 2004-05. Diseased blood vessels are its most common form, and the underlying process is atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is characterised by plaque formation in blood vessels. Plaque formation is problematic, and may lead to blood vessel blockage. We aim to identify novel targets that prevent plaque formation.