THE ROLE OF SIALIC ACID IN INFANT NUTRITION AND BRAIN DEVELOPMENT
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$402,750.00
Summary
Sub-optimal nutrition during critical periods of brain growth has persistent effects on the human brain. Premature infants are especially vulnerable because brain growth reaches its peak at 26 weeks gestation and remains high throughout the first year of life. Those fed human milk in the first month after birth have been shown to have a significant intellectual advantage compared with infants fed standard infant formulas. While the n-3 fatty acids such as DHA are thought to be important, other c ....Sub-optimal nutrition during critical periods of brain growth has persistent effects on the human brain. Premature infants are especially vulnerable because brain growth reaches its peak at 26 weeks gestation and remains high throughout the first year of life. Those fed human milk in the first month after birth have been shown to have a significant intellectual advantage compared with infants fed standard infant formulas. While the n-3 fatty acids such as DHA are thought to be important, other components of human milk may be of greater significance for brain growth. Our interest is in a sugar compound called sialic acid. It occurs in remarkably large amounts in human milk (up to 1g-L) but is present in only small quantities in infant formulas. Sialic acid is an important structural and functional component of brain cells. It is directly involved in nerve cell transmission, memory formation and cell-to-cell communication. During peak brain growth, young infants, especially pre-term ones, are unlikely to be able to synthesise sufficient sialic acid to meet their needs. At these times, they rely on human milk and infant formulas to supply the necessary building blocks. If their diet is a poor source of sialic acid, however, there may be lasting consequences for intellectual development. This research project addresses several questions. 1. Does oral sialic acid supplementation over the first few weeks of life increase both brain sialic acid levels as well as learning behaviour? 2. Is there any dose-response relationship - is more better? 3. Does supplementation influence the expression of genes encoding key enzymes in the brain? 4. Does dietary supplementation affect the activity of the liver enzyme involved in synthesis of sialic acid? If our findings can be extrapolated to human infants, they will have implications for the etiology of all types of cognitive and behavioural defects in children, including learning difficulties and attention deficit disorder.Read moreRead less
Relationship Between Anterior Cingulate Morphology, Neuronal Integrity And Function In Schizophrenia And OCD
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$312,813.00
Summary
Schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are extremely disabling psychiatric disorders. Both tend to appear in early adulthood and have a number of important similarities. These include problems with planning and organising thoughts, abnormal brain chemistry, and changed function in the same brain region, the anterior cingulate. The anterior cingulate has been known for some time to be involved in emotion, motivation and attention. However, it is now recognised as the interface betw ....Schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are extremely disabling psychiatric disorders. Both tend to appear in early adulthood and have a number of important similarities. These include problems with planning and organising thoughts, abnormal brain chemistry, and changed function in the same brain region, the anterior cingulate. The anterior cingulate has been known for some time to be involved in emotion, motivation and attention. However, it is now recognised as the interface between the emotional, feeling part of the brain and the controlling, thinking part. Many, if not all, of the functions performed by the anterior cingulate are disturbed in both schizophrenia and OCD, meaning that studying this region may provide important clues to the nature of the two illnesses. One important characteristic of the anterior cingulate which has not been considered in previous research is its division into three distinct subregions, each with their own specific function. In particular, there is a cognitive region, which deals with response selection and information processing, and an emotional region, which assesses motivational content and controls emotional learning. Because of the nature of the two disorders we intend to study, we believe that schizophrenia will be associated with more abnormalities of the cognitive region, while OCD will be associated with changes in the emotional region. Another important feature of our research design is that we intend to collect data from the same subjects using four separate brain imaging techniques, which provide information about different levels of brain structure and function. This will allow us to interpret our findings from measures of brain chemistry in the context of our findings of brain function. Hopefully this will help us to clarify the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and OCD, and provide potential ways to assess the effect of different treatment strategies in these illnesses.Read moreRead less
The Role Of Primordial Follicle Activation In Premature Ovarian Failure
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$318,768.00
Summary
As women age, both the quality and quantity of their eggs decline and their chances of conceiving plummets. Premature ovarian failure (POF) is a disease of infertility, diagnosed in 3% of all women, defined by the early onset of menopause before age 40. Our poor understanding of the factors that regulate female egg supply remains a major limitation in treating POF. I will study key factors responsible for controlling egg number, with practical implications for POF diagnosis and treatment.
In Vivo Analysis Of The Molecular And Neural Mechanism That Underly An Association Of MiRNAs With Mental Disorders
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$593,778.00
Summary
Genetic studies on autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression suggest that these disorders affect the formation and maintenance of connections between neurons. A group of brain-specific microRNAs, which are regulatory molecules, are predicted to regulate connectivity. Levels of these molecules are found to be abnormal in brains of patients with schizophrenia. This proposal aims to elucidate the function of these microRNAs in the number of neuronal connections, and early motor b ....Genetic studies on autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression suggest that these disorders affect the formation and maintenance of connections between neurons. A group of brain-specific microRNAs, which are regulatory molecules, are predicted to regulate connectivity. Levels of these molecules are found to be abnormal in brains of patients with schizophrenia. This proposal aims to elucidate the function of these microRNAs in the number of neuronal connections, and early motor behavior in transgenic zebrafish.Read moreRead less
Neurodevelopmental Role Of Susceptibility Genes For Autism Spectrum Disorders: From Genes To Behaviour
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$482,968.00
Summary
Autism is a developmental neuropsychiatric syndrome characterised by impairments in three principal domains: social interaction, language and behavioural inflexibility. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a group of neurodevelopmental syndromes with the common feature of dysfunctional reciprocal social interaction. In this project we will investigate the role of genes that increase the risk of ASD in the development of behaviours using an animal model. This work will lead to a better unders ....Autism is a developmental neuropsychiatric syndrome characterised by impairments in three principal domains: social interaction, language and behavioural inflexibility. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a group of neurodevelopmental syndromes with the common feature of dysfunctional reciprocal social interaction. In this project we will investigate the role of genes that increase the risk of ASD in the development of behaviours using an animal model. This work will lead to a better understanding of the genetic basis of ASD.Read moreRead less
Identifying Neuroanatomical Sub-phenotypes Of Schizophrenia
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$60,129.00
Summary
The clinical presentation of schizophrenia is varied across individuals, and has arguably hindered efforts to determine its cause/s. This project seeks to address this issue by investigating biological commonality in patients, to identify subgroups of schizophrenia patients with similar brain abnormalities, with the overall aim to examine cognitive and clinical characteristics and candidate genetic markers in association with biologically derived subtypes of schizophrenia.
Mood and anxiety disorders represent a tremendous cause of disability and morbidity. This research will use cutting-edge brain imaging technologies to understand why these disorders typically emerge in young people and whether brain imaging can reliably predict the effectiveness of different treatments for individual patients.