brain chemistry – NIH Director's Blog (original) (raw)

Measuring Brain Chemistry

Posted on June 14th, 2018 by Dr. Francis Collins

Anne Andrews
Credit: From the American Chemical Society’s “Personal Stories of Discovery”

Serotonin is one of the chemical messengers that nerve cells in the brain use to communicate. Modifying serotonin levels is one way that antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications are thought to work and help people feel better. But the precise nature of serotonin’s role in the brain is largely unknown.

That’s why Anne Andrews set out in the mid-1990s as a fellow at NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health to explore changes in serotonin levels in the brains of anxious mice. But she quickly realized it wasn’t possible. The tools available for measuring serotonin—and most other neurochemicals in the brain—couldn’t offer the needed precision to conduct her studies.

Instead of giving up, Andrews did something about it. In the late 1990s, she began formulating an idea for a neural probe to make direct and precise measurements of brain chemistry. Her progress was initially slow, partly because the probe she envisioned was technologically ahead of its time. Now at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) more than 15 years later, she’s nearly there. Buoyed by recent scientific breakthroughs, the right team to get the job done, and the support of a 2017 NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award, Andrews expects to have the first fully functional devices ready within the next two years.

Posted In: Creative Minds

Tags: 2017 NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award, anxiety, anxiety disorders, aptamer, bioengineering, brain, brain chemistry, depression, mental health, neurology, neuroscience, neurostimulators, neurotransmitter, psychiatric disorders, serotonin, technology

Imaging Willpower: Using Brain Scans to Explore Obesity

Posted on November 25th, 2014 by Dr. Francis Collins

For some people, the smell of Mom’s home-baked pie, the sight of an ice cream truck, or the sound of sizzling French fries can trigger a feeding frenzy. But others find it much easier to resist such temptations. What’s the explanation?

You might think it’s sheer willpower. But a recent study in the journal Molecular Psychiatry suggests the answer to what fuels susceptibility to food cues may be far more complex, related to subtle differences in brain chemistry [1].