By Karim Shamsi-Basha
When a leading mission-oriented service organization – Civitan International – partners with one of the best medical institutions in the world – UAB – the results could break the blood-brain barrier.
Megan Rich, University of Alabama at Birmingham graduate research assistant in neuroscience, is revolutionizing curing disease and, in a larger sense, understanding how our brain works. Rich is working on penetrating the blood-brain barrier in a noninvasive way.
“What we are trying to do is create a noninvasive method of neuromodulation, so the idea is that we can send drugs to specific parts of the brain that wouldn’t normally cross the blood-brain barrier,” Rich said. “The blood-brain barrier exists between general blood circulation and circulation that is allowed to enter the brain tissue. This barrier prevents most drugs from getting into the brain and can be manipulated with focused ultrasound.”Rich further explained in layman’s terms:
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