Tweaking potassium levels in brain could be a key to fighting Huntington's disease

By boosting the ability of a specific type of cell to absorb potassium in the brain, UCLA researchers were able to improve walking and prolong survival in a mouse model of Huntington's disease.   Their findings, published March 30 in the online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience, could point to new drug targets for treating the devastating disease, which strikes one in every 20,000 Americans.   Huntington's disease is passed from parent to child through a mutation in the huntingtin gene. By killing brain cells called neurons, the disorder gradually deprives patients of their ability to walk, speak, swallow, breathe and think clearly. No cure exists, and patients with aggressive cases can die in as little as 10 years.   The laboratories of Baljit Khakh, a UCLA professor of physiology and neurobiology, and Michael Sofroniew, a UCLA professor of neurobiology, teamed up at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA to unravel the role that astrocytes — large, star-shaped cells found in the brain and spinal cord — play in Huntington's.   "Astrocytes appear in the brain in equal numbers to neurons yet haven't been closely studied," Khakh said. "They enable neurons to signal each other by maintaining an optimal chemical environment outside the cells. We used two mouse models to explore whether astrocytes behave differently during Huntington's disease."   The first model mimicked an aggressive, early-onset type of the disorder, ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news