A discovery that could protect the eye and the brain
By Jan Jarvis
UNT Health Science Center eye researchers have discovered a chemical that may help prevent irreversible vision loss caused by glaucoma and other retinal diseases.
Nerves in the inner retina carry signals through the optic nerve to the brain for vision recognition, said Abe Clark, PhD., Executive Director of UNTHSC’s North Texas Eye Research Institute.
Abe Clark, PhD.
“When the cells in the retina are damaged, then the cells that they connect to in the brain also become damaged,” Dr. Clark said. “When you lose certain nerves in the retina, you lose nerves in the center of the brain.”
But Dr. Clark and his team found that it may be possible to protect both the eye and brain using a chemical known as a JNK inhibitor. The research group exposed cultured retinal cells to several toxic insults while also using a mouse model of retinal ischemic stroke, resulting in nerve cell death in both the retina and brain.
By treating the retina cells with this chemical, the researchers were able to protect against ischemic nerve cell death. The discovery could lead to new therapies to prevent vision loss due to glaucoma and other retinal diseases. The work, which was supported by a grant from the Department of Defense, was published this month in Molecular Neurodegeneration.
“We suggest that the JNK signaling pathway is a prominent and critical path for neurodegeneration due to retinal stroke,” Dr. Clark said. “Treating the nerves with this inhibitor totally protected the retina and the nerves in the brain from functional damage.”
The discovery is believed to be applicable to a number of eye diseases, including glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, he said. It could also have implications for brain diseases caused by blood flow blockage.
“The retina is part of the brain, and what we might have found is a way to protect the nerves in the brain from similar insults like a stroke,” Dr. Clark said. “We are excited about this as a potential new therapy for treating nerves in diseases with compromised blood flow.”
By Alex Branch The UNT Health Science Center’s osteopathic medical school was the only medical school in Texas to place at least 25 percent of 2018 graduates in family medicine. It’s the latest example of the program’s leadership in reducing the state’s shortage of primary care phy...Read more
Dec 12, 2018
By Jan Jarvis Shelia Neal can’t recall much of what happened on the day she learned she was HIV positive because of the sheer shock of it all. But one thing stands out. “Until then, I had never had a doctor bend down and look at me eye-to-eye,” she said. “But she did, and ...Read more
Dec 12, 2018
By Jan Jarvis Michael Mathis, PhD, sees plenty of similarities between his current job at Louisiana State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine, and his future one as dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UNT Health Science Center. “A medical school and a vet...Read more
Dec 11, 2018
By Sally Crocker In the fall of 1984, Maria Guadalupe Almaguer was murdered by her estranged husband, David Gonzales. The couple had been separated for two years following a rocky, abusive relationship, and Maria had been saving for a divorce. She had just been promoted at work, and thi...Read more
Dec 5, 2018