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Press Releases | |
November 29, 2001
Southampton College Professor Finds Technique to Gauge Brain RecoveryNew Testing Method Evaluates Genetic Therapy for Auditory Processing
Contact:
Darren Johnson
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081Psychobiologist John Neill, Ph.D., a researcher at Southampton College of Long Island University, has discovered a method of testing hearing behavior in animals that can be used to measure the effectiveness of genetic therapy. The discovery gives researchers an important tool for measuring auditory behavior that could one day be used to help humans recover from brain damage.
Dr. Neill, Professor of Psychology at Southampton College, published the results of his discovery in the September issue of "Molecular Brain Research" and presented his findings this week at the Society for Neuroscience Conference in San Diego.
Through genetic therapy that increases the amount of a chemical in the brain called protein kinase C., animals can rapidly learn new meanings to sounds. But, until now, a behavioral method to test the results of this genetic therapy had been unproven. Dr. Neill's discovery, named Auditory Discrimination Reversal Testing, is important because it is the first time that anyone has been able to show a change in hearing behavior following genetic therapy in animals. The auditory behavioral testing methods developed by Dr. Neill have already been adapted to human patients.
"The ability to change one's behavior based on new meanings of auditory stimuli is impaired in many humans who have developmental disabilities such as mental retardation and head injury," explained Dr. Neill. "We hope one day to use genetic intervention with humans to help them recover from brain damage that impairs their understanding of what they hear."
The new test involves training animals to press a lever when one sounds comes on, but not when another comes on. The gene therapy is then introduced, and the animals are retested with the stimuli reversed so they have to respond the opposite of how they did during the initial training. Animals that received the gene therapy learned the new rules significantly faster than those that did not.
"The importance of our new behavioral contribution is that many neuroscientists have been trained in chemistry and biology, but not in psychology, and many of their tests lack the ability to detect changes after therapeutic interventions. We are delighted to be able to show a significant improvement in auditory learning following gene therapy, especially since it is a method of testing that is applicable to humans as well as animals," said Dr. Neill.
Dr. Neill developed the behavioral technology that made his discovery possible in his Ph.D. dissertation on how animals learn about sound in their natural environment. He tested the behavioral technology in animals at Children's Hospital, Boston and at Harvard Medical School, where he continues to work on research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health as Instructor of Neurology.
As a Professor at Southampton College of Long Island University, he trains psychobiology students in using auditory testing of both humans and animals using the same methods. With the sponsorship of the National Institutes of Health, he and his students continue to collaborate with Dr. Gregory Holmes, Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, on studies of the behavioral and neurological effects of various new therapies.
"We can't make major discoveries in neuroscience without effective behavioral technology, and we need to understand that training young behavioral psychologists is essential for advancing our understanding of the brain," said Dr. Neill. "We were especially glad to see that this behavioral method, which is so sensitive to genetic activation of proteins in the brain, was effective, since so many other methods had been tried and failed."
Dr. Neill believes that there is an essential need for competent psychobiologists who understand behavior and can work in an interdisciplinary field so that effective behavioral technology can be developed.