Jan. 17, 2002 DALLAS – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical
Center at Dallas are a step closer to defining the function of
two proteins involved in neurotransmitter release, which
initiates communication between neurons in the brain. Findings
from the two-part study, published in today’s issue of Nature,
provides new insight in understanding how the brain functions,
which ultimately has broad implications for the development of
drug therapy to treat neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s
and Parkinson’s, as well as learning and memory disorders. “This
is pure, fundamental research,” said Dr. Thomas Südhof, director
of the Center for Basic Neuroscience at UT Southwestern and
senior author of the first part of the study. “It is essential
for understanding various diseases of the nervous system. The
premise of our work is the understanding of neurotransmitter
release, which is a necessity for understanding brain function
and how the brain works.” The researchers bred mice that lacked
the brain proteins RIM1