The brain cells you haven ’t heard about

For years, Baljit Khakh has been studying stars — not those in the firmament but those in our brains. Astrocytes, so named because of their starlike shape, make up around half of our brain cells, but in research they’ve long taken a back seat to neurons.Khakh ’s research is changing that. The professor of physiology and neurobiology still recalls sifting through scientific studies, seeing the progress being made in neuronal research and being struck by how little was known about astrocytes. “The more I read,” he recalled, “the more I became convi nced that key questions remained to be tackled.”To that end,Khakh ’s lab has developed new concepts and tools that have helped elucidate the structure, function and distribution of these specialized glial cells across the brain. Thanks in large part to those efforts, it is now known that astrocytes, in a broad sense, act as neurons ’ housekeepers, providing them with nutrients and maintaining an optimal chemical environment that enables them to communicate effectively with each other.But Khakh ’s groundbreaking research has also revealed that astrocyte dysfunction plays a crucial role in neurological and psychiatric diseases, from Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s to ADHD and obsessive-compulsive disorder. “Essentially all brain diseases likely contain an astrocytic component,” Khakh said. “The key is to dissect it and exploit it. ”In advance of delivering the 134th Faculty Research on Wednesday, April 19,...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news