Grant: Project Grant - PA: Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction

Neurons communicate to other cells via synapses. During development, synapses must grow and establish correct levels of communication. Failure to do so has major implications for neurological and psychiatric disorders during development and maturation. In adulthood, degeneration of synapses underlies many progressive degenerative disorders. Synapses are high energy structures that need a constant supply of bricks (or proteins) to build themselves up, carry out repairs, and adjust to the physiological or traumatic demands placed upon them. To acquire the correct bricks, synapses send requests to the nucleus, which converts the request into the correct set of bricks that the synapse needs. During embryonic and childhood development, these bricks sent by the nucleus are needed to help the synapse grow, establish communication and respond to developmental changes in brain function. In adulthood, these bricks allow synapses to repair and make necessary adjustments to keep the synapse working optimally as demands on the synapse change and the animal ages. Our project aims to uncover how the nucleus converts requests into the right type and number of bricks, and to identify new types of bricks that synapses need . We study this question in motor neurons, which contact muscles to allow us to move and breathe. Our work is relevant to motor neuron diseases, but we expect our work to also provide fundamental understanding of this critical process which occurs in all neurons. Failure of any part of this process is devastating to neuronal health, and underlies many disorders. The Public Health Agency of Canada has reported that neurological conditions affect 3.6 million Canadians, costing billions in direct healthcare and family care costs. Given these statistics, and our inability to effectively treat most of these disorders, it is critical that we make headway in understanding such fundamental processes as studied here that are required for neuronal function