Trinity researchers have developed a new method of studying the brain that could lead to advances in the treatment of motor neurone disease (MND).
Fresh findings from scientists in the College’s unit of neurology will help develop on existing treatments for MND – which causes progressive paralysis and is ultimately fatal.
In a press release, Stefan Dukic, the lead author of the study, said: “The human brain works by electrical signalling between billions of neurons in different networks. This electrical signalling between neurons allows us to perform every-day tasks such as movement, sensing and thinking.”
He continued: “In MND, we have for the first time found specific and reproducible changes in electrical brain signalling using electroencephalography recordings.”
This is the first time researchers have used electroencephalography in this way to study MND. The study shows that it is a viable – and significantly cheaper – alternative to using functional MRI to study abnormal brain activity.
“The new findings,” Dukic said, ”have identified previously unrecognised abnormalities in the brain networking. This advances our understanding of the specific brain networks that become dysfunctional as the disease progresses”.
Patients diagnosed with MND have a life expectancy of two to three years on average. Between 2 and 3 out of every 100,000 people in Ireland live with the disease, with a diagnosis occurring around every 3 days.
Prof Orla Hardiman, the head of the unit of neurology at Trinity and a world expert in MND, said in a press release: “In MND research, these findings are a major leap from the current state-of-the-art approach to studying the disease.”
The study, she said, “has shown how we can now begin to carefully quantify changes in specific parts of brain networks”.
“This will have major implications on how we classify sub-types of the disease. It can also help to tell us what patient groups may respond to new therapies”, she said.
The research team has been able to identify and study in detail more than six different brain networks associated with MND.
“There is an urgent need for new treatments that can slow disease progression, and the development of new biomarkers that can help to identify patient subgroups is a very important unmet need”, Hardiman added.
Earlier this month, the research team found that gender can affect the heritability of MND.
