Sheffield university team find new way to research disease

University of Sheffield researchers have been looking at new ways to track the effects of motor neurone disease on the body.
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Researchers from Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) used an advanced imaging technique called 31-phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy to measure chemicals that are crucial to energy metabolism in the cell.

The research was conducted on patients living with MND as well healthy people of the same age and gender. matched healthy controls. For the patient it is just like undergoing a standard MRI scan.

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MND, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is a disorder that affects the nerves - motor neurones - in the brain and spinal cord that form the connection between the nervous system and muscles to enable movement of the body.

The Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)The Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)
The Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)

The messages from these nerves gradually stop reaching the muscles, leading them to weaken, stiffen and waste.

There are many barriers to developing effective treatments for MND as we don’t yet fully understand how or why it develops in the first place. However, there is good evidence from laboratory data and disease models that the mitochondria - or powerhouses of the cell - may be impaired.

Dr Thomas Jenkins, senior author of the paper and clinical senior lecturer at SITraN, said: “This research has the potential to impact the development of more effective treatments for MND.

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"It appears to be a promising tool with potential to measure the effect of medications acting on mitochondrial function in people living with MND.”

“Treatments that aim to rescue mitochondrial function in MND are being investigated in labs around the world. This non-invasive tool can demonstrate whether medications in development are successfully targeting mitochondria, which is an important step in selecting treatments to take through to clinical trials.”

Future research aims to widen the scope of this study to include larger numbers of MND patients. As the mitochondria are also thought to be a factor in a range of other neurodegenerative diseases, there may be potential for this technique to be widened to different patient groups.

The study was supported by charitable funding from Neurocare, the Ryder Briggs Trust and a British Medical Association Vera Down grant, and by the NIHR Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre.

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The research is part of the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Sheffield which brings together leading experts in medicine, science and engineering to better understand the nervous system and tackle the biggest challenges in neuroscience.

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