In 1990, President George Bush proclaimed the next 10 years to be the “Decade of the Brain.” Subsequent research into brain growth and development, the functioning of memory and other related topics has fully justified his hopes.

Some of this path-breaking research is going on in Maine at the laboratories of the Biomedical Research Coalition. The Coalition includes The Jackson Laboratory, the Mount Desert Biological Laboratory, the Maine Medical Center Research Institute, the Foundation for Blood Research and the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Together, these five institutions are leveraging state dollars to create hundreds of jobs and bring millions of dollars of research money into Maine.

The University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine is particularly involved in brain research. The college, Maine’s only medical school, has been recognized repeatedly in the past as one of the best in the country for preparing primary care physicians. Now we are growing an exciting program of neuroscience (or brain) research.

Within the University of New England’s Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, I and fellow researcher Peter Morgane, Ph.D. are collaborating on a brain and nutrition research project with other scientists at the Boston University School of Medicine. The research, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, examines how protein malnutrition during pregnancy affects the brain development of an infant.

Protein malnutrition is the most prevalent form of malnutrition in the world today. It is well known that children of mothers who are protein malnourished during pregnancy have a greater tendency to experience learning disabilities and other mental disorders. But the details of how this occurs are not well understood.

This is what the scientists at the University of New England are uncovering. Peter and I and our colleagues at Boston University are using laboratory animals to study a particular area of the brain called the hippocampus. The hippocampus is involved in learning and memory. Damage to the hippocampus interferes with the formation of memories.

We have studied in particular a chemical called serotonin. Serotonin has often been associated with mood disorders such as depression, but its central function in the brain is to allow the transfer of information in the hippocampus. Too much or too little serotonin disrupts the ability of information to be stored in the hippocampus and interferes with the formation of memories.

We have found rats exposed to malnutrition during development develop an increase in the level of serotonin in the brain. Other studies by Boston University scientists have confirmed this change in serotonin levels, and have shown that in fact there are fewer serotonin cells in the brains of these animals.

As the animals do not perform well in memory tests, the findings identify the chemical link between protein malnutrition and learning disabilities.

We at the University of New England and our colleagues at Boston University are continuing our work to try to determine just how and when these changes occur. We hope that further work can lead to treatments that will reverse these chemical changes either during pregnancy or after birth, so that learning disabilities can be prevented or at least lessened.

David J. Mokler, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine.