Tristan Pocock, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.111.45

In our busy everyday lives, it is easy to lose touch with research occurring down the road at other institutions. Our one-day conference in April brought together nearly one hundred enthusiastic physiologists from across the three Universities in Greater Manchester (University of Manchester [UoM], Manchester Metropolitan University [MMU] and University of Salford [UoS]). Bringing together researchers across physiological disciplines allows us to form unexpected collaborations, and to keep physiology alive and kicking in our own cities and beyond. Rather than organising a meeting themed around a certain topic, we focused on inviting speakers at different stages of their research careers.

For example, Jess Caldwell (UoM) talked about her PhD, investigating possible treatments for heart failure. She focuses on the T-tubules (which deliver extracellular calcium ions to the atria); they are lost following heart failure, leading to a loss of synchronicity in atrial contraction. Although there is some regeneration of the T-tubule network after heart failure, this tends to be disorganised compared to control cells. Jess has found that transfection of neonatal cells with amphiphysin II (Amp II) can lead to the formation of T-tubules, meaning that Amp II may be involved in restoring T-tubules in patients with heart failure.

Andrew Loudon summarised his 40 years of research into body clocks. He explained that, in hibernating mammals, behaviour (such as mating) is driven by melatonin, which is secreted by the pineal gland. As this gland is light-sensitive, it responds to day length; in Syrian hamsters, gonad growth is stimulated by an increase in day length. Melatonin acts on cells in the pars tuberalis (a small part of the pituitary gland that contains cells that secrete TSH [thyroid stimulating hormone] to control the animal’s metabolism and growth). Logically, thyroidectomy locks these animals into a state in which they are unable to breed, migrate and perform other essential behaviours.

Keeping on the subject of neurophysiology, Llwyd Orton (MMU) introduced the second most common form of dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). It is often misdiagnosed, as the symptoms, including fluctuating cognitive decline, REM sleep disorder and recurrent visual hallucinations, are found in other neurodegenerative conditions. Llwyd’s interest lies in auditory hallucinations. He has found that applying kainate (acid occurring naturally in some seaweed) to the auditory cortex generates gamma oscillations, which may lead to hallucinations. These oscillations were found to be faster in a mouse model of DLB than in control mice. These mice also developed epilepsy at lower doses of kainate than controls. Llwyd conducted a systematic review which demonstrated a high prevalence of auditory hallucinations in DLB patients compared to patients with Parkinson’s Disease.

Gemma Lace-Costain (UoS) gave an animated account of her research into Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). She first provided an overview of what is known about AD – namely that an abnormal accumulation of protein leads to cognitive impairment and cell death. She then discussed her research into protein degradation in the brain and the different mechanisms of autophagy. She has measured markers of autophagy in human brain tissue from the Manchester Brain Bank and found that in some regions of the hippocampus there is a decline in these markers as tau pathology increases. This suggests that switching on autophagy may have beneficial effects in terms of slowing down the development of AD. In a very interactive talk, she asked how many audience members had a ‘favourite protein’ and mentioned how she reassures students that it is OK to be a geeky scientist!

The symposium ended with Rachel Tribe’s GL Brown Prize lecture entitled ‘How to expect the unexpected?’ See p. 21 for more about her talk.
I’d like to thank the other Physiological Society Reps, Ian Kay (MMU) and David Greensmith (UoS), as well as my colleagues, Holly Shiels, Liz Sheader and David Eisner, for helping to organise the day, and of course The Physiological Society for funding it.