Rice University study finds possible clues to epilep...(d and it set me on a path of trying to f...)

Howlett's breakthrough was identifying the negative feedback loop that acts to maintain neuronal excitability at normal levels. "What we found was that glutamate, which is released due to neuronal activity, feeds back onto metabotropic glutamate receptors on the same neurons that released it in the first place. This leads to the activation of PI3K and ultimately to the dampening of the amount of glutamate that is released." Without that regulation, he said, things inside the cell can go terribly wrong.

"He put his heart and soul into this," said Stern of Howlett's exploration of the neuronal chain. "He was working on PI3K because that has a key role in neurofibromatosis. The Department of Defense is very interested in how PI3K is regulated in the nervous system because of its role in tumor formation."

Discovering the negative feedback loop that keeps neurons stable was key, said Stern, but not the end of the investigation. "We know that glutamate activates mGluR and PI3K, but we don't know how," he said. "There are almost certainly a number of intermediates that remain to be identified, and we have several candidates we're looking into.

"We're finding a mechanistic link among these molecules that hadn't been previously appreciated," Stern said.

"Obviously the next step would be to test whether these same molecules are playing similar roles in mammalian neurons," said Howlett, who will leave Rice in the spring to pursue postdoctoral cancer research at Virginia Commonwealth University. A native Houstonian, he earned his bachelor's in biology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Howlett said mGluRs had already been targeted in possible treatments for schizophrenia, epilepsy and other "excitability" diseases, so it's not a stretch to think his research could lead to even more strategies in treating neurological ailments.

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