Penn Medicine researchers received a $26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate early signs of brain disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team \u2014 comprised of researchers from Penn and the University of Miami \u2014\u00a0will use the funding to study participants with a gene mutation associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. These are both progressive neurological conditions associated with the C9orf72 gene, and researchers hope to uncover possible interventions by investigating symptom markers.<\/p>\n
In an interview, Perelman School of Medicine professor Corey McMillan, who is leading the study with University of Miami professor of neurology and public health sciences Michael Benatar, explained that he wanted to combine his expertise in FTD with Benatar\u2019s knowledge of ALS. The former, he said, is a \u201ccognitive and behavioral disorder\u201d while the latter is a \u201cneuromuscular, motor disorder.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking for years about the need to work together and reduce the silos of the field,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea was for us to come together as a dual perspective from FTD and ALS in order to accomplish this.\u201d<\/p>\n
To achieve that goal, each of the study\u2019s 13 sites will be staffed by a neuromuscular neurologist and either a cognitive neurologist or a psychiatrist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Sign Up<\/a><\/p>\n McMillan added that the team is using \u201cmultimodal approaches,\u201d including biofluid analysis and MRI imaging.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s critical that we have a large team of different perspectives from the FTD-ALS spectrum, and then also different perspectives across the many different domains of science that we\u2019re bringing together,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n The study\u2019s focus on early identification is particularly important because intervention in the earliest stages is more likely to have the \u201clargest impacts on the disease biology,\u201d according to McMillan.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that the biology starts happening probably a decade or more before clinical symptoms are evident, so there’s a window that we think that we can stop the disease process in time before the disease manifests itself as ALS or FTD,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a Sept. 22 release, Benatar wrote<\/a> that one of the biggest barriers to developing effective treatments for the conditions is that \u201cwe may be intervening too late, after the diseases have progressed too far.\u201d<\/p>\n