How can "basic" neuroscience research help to find cures for neurological disorders?
A better understanding of the brain at each level - molecules, cells and neural systems -is critical to finding better treatments and perhaps more significant, ways to prevent disease altogether. If we understand how brain functions in normal states, we must be better able to "fix" it when something goes wrong.
So-called "basic research" to unravel fundamental mechanisms of brain processes in health and in disease is a primary driver of clinical research aimed at developing new drugs or therapeutic strategies. For instance, basic studies of how brain cells communicate with one another and how brain encodes memories have contributed greatly to development of pharmacologic compounds which treat disrupted neural processes. This approach is beginning to pay off in investigational therapies for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. In psychiatric illnesses, investigating brain pathways underlying depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder is providing clues about how best to select treatment based on neural systems involved.