It's relatively easy to get a pH reading (measure of acidity) of your garden soil. Not so with the human brain, where pH changes are involved in normal neurological activity and brain injury and diseases.

However, that may change, thanks to an award from the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience to University of Iowa scientists who plan to develop imaging techniques to measure and understand the influence of pH on normal brain function and disease.

John Wemmie, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and neurosurgery at the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and a staff physician and researcher at the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, has received a three-year, $300,000 McKnight Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Award. The funding, one of only six such awards given this year, supports innovative efforts aimed at translating basic laboratory discoveries in neuroscience into clinical benefits for patients.

Wemmie and co-principal investigator Vincent Magnotta, PhD, UI associate professor of radiology, psychiatry and biomedical engineering, will use the funding to develop magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based strategies to accurately and non-invasively measure pH in mouse and human brains, and apply those techniques to investigate changes in brain acidity during fear responses. Magnotta also is a member of the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging.

Along with normal neurological activity, brain injury and disease produce fluctuations in brain tissue acidity. These pH changes occur rapidly and may be relatively small, making them difficult to monitor. Recent studies, including research from Wemmie's lab, have used animal models to identify acid-sensing ion channels as key players in anxiety disorders, stroke, seizures and multiple sclerosis.

"It is possible that this pH signaling system involving brain acidity and acid-sensing proteins could be enabling or contributing to the development of panic disorder and anxiety disorders," Wemmie said. "So, if we can monitor the pH signal it might provide an opportunity to intervene in these disorders.

"The ability to monitor local pH changes in the brain could also be useful for early detection and mapping of affected regions in stroke and multiple sclerosis—diseases where acidic pH might be one of the earliest and very salient indicators of risk and damage," he added.

The new study will focus on the role of pH in anxiety, fear responses and memory. Magnotta's expertise in developing imaging protocols for psychiatric studies will help the team investigate whether findings from Wemmie's mouse studies on fear behavior are also observed during anxiety-provoking protocols in people.

Wemmie notes that if the study is successful, the research could lead to new ways to diagnose, monitor, and treat psychiatric and neurological illnesses.

Vincent Magnotta, PhD, right, and John Wemmie, MD, PhD, left

For more information:

John Wemmie, MD, PhD

UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine

Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center

McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience