Curing brain ailments: brain researchers say effective new treatments possible by the year 2000.

Health

Brain researchers say effective new treatments possible by the year 2000 Migraine headaches, substance abuse, strokes, depression, and memory loss are among the most common types of brain disorders for which scientists hope to find treatments by the year 2000.

The

newly formed Dana Foundation Alliance for Brain Initiatives, a consortium of neuroscientists and brain researchers, has identified several objectives for this field that could be realized within the next few years. The neur-oscientists polled by the Alliance predicted that by the end of the decade brain research will:

* Identify genetic defects that lead to Huntington's disease (99%).

* Identify defective genes that cause Alzheimer's disease (89%).

* Develop better treatments for pain from migraine headaches (93%), arthritis (93%), and cancer (91%).

Developing drugs to block addictive substances, identifying the causes behind hereditary deafness and blindness, and finding substances to reduce nerve-cell damage and speed recovery from strokes were among the longer-range goals of researchers.

Support for the researchers' optimism has recently arisen: Within weeks of the survey, researchers discovered the gene causing Huntington's disease and won approval for an improved treatment of migraine headaches, according to the Alliance.

"What makes neuroscience research so exciting is its fundamental potential for improving the quality of our lives," says Dana Foundation chairman David Mahoney, who is also chairman of the Alliance.

Progress in treating brain-related disorders is currently impeded by the need for further research and a general lack of understanding by the public on this subject, according to Mahoney. The study found that public knowledge about brain-related diseases trails far behind that of other diseases.

Mental illness, degenerative disorders, substance abuse, strokes, and epilepsy are just a few of the brain-related disorders that currently affect some 50 million Americans, according to the Alliance. Brain-related disorders annually cost the United States over $300 billion.

"For most people, the brain remains a mystery, so they don't realize the degree of the problem, or where advances in neuroscience research might lead," says Mahoney.

The Dana Alliance was founded at the Cold Spring Harbor Conference on the Decade of the Brain in 1992, with Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James D. Watson as its co-chairman. The Alliance is made up of more than 50 leading neuroscientists and advocates for brain research and is supported by the Charles A. Dana Foundation.

Source: The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, 745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 700, New York, New York 10151.