Lou Gehrig's research takes a nose-ward turn

Research on ALS (commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease) has taken a new turn: up the nose. Scientists have always known that astrocytes, the brain cells that play a role in the disease, are difficult to study because they live behind the tough barrier surrounding the brain.

Now, researchers have realized that these cells can actually be found deep down your nostrils, in a mushy part between the brain and the nose called the nasal olfactory mucosa.

"This is a new cell target that hasn't been targeted in the past," Hopkins neurologist and lead researcher Jeffrey Rothstein said. "It could be very important for developing drug therapy."

Rothstein is eager to test how different treatments for ALS affect the astrocytes in the brain. By sticking a long bendy endoscope up someone's numbed nostrils, he can gather quite a bit of information from the astrocytes that have been hiding from him for so long. "We can study astrocyte response by looking at someone's nose," he said.

Astrocytes are important to Rothstein because they eliminate a chemical in the brain called glutamate. Researchers suspect the astrocytes aren't doing their job properly in ALS patients, because brains with ALS have a much larger amount of glutamate than a normal brain.

"The astrocytes don't suck up enough glutamate," Rothstein said. "Then the glutamate crowds around the neurons and they die."

Rothstein's curiosity in the nasal olfactory mucosa was sparked 4 years ago, when he was attending a conference in Japan. He saw a presentation that his colleague Akira Sawa gave on a cell that lives in the nasal olfactory mucosa. Rothstein thought that maybe the astrocytes he was looking for were in the same spot. Four years later, Rothstein still gets giddy talking about his new way to study astrocytes.

"It just takes a little pinch of tissue. It's really just like the size of a booger," he said.

The process is quite simple, as opposed to the other ways of reaching an astrocyte. The only other known spots where astrocytes live are the retina, the rectum, or the brain itself. Rothstein laughed that he might get a few volunteers for the rectal studies; however, removing brain tissue or retinas is out of the question, since neither restores itself.

Besides the nasal cavity's accessibility, Rothstein is also excited because it is the one part of your brain that grows back. Now that he has a solid ground for testing, Rothstein is eager to see what drugs will affect the astrocytes and how. He's working his way through over a million chemicals to find the right combination to fight ALS at the moment, but isn't intimidated by the challenge. "We have to make better drugs," he said.

Now, Rothstein has a tool to help him accomplish just that.