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JOHNSON CITY – Within the brain, an estimated 100 billion neurons process and transmit information and send electrochemical
signals to and from the brain and nervous system. Providing support functions of those neurons are glia cells, which outnumber
the neurons. Communication between the neurons and glia is critical.
But what happens if that cross-talk is disrupted? Dr. Greg Ordway, professor and chair of Pharmacology at East Tennessee
State University’s James H. Quillen College of Medicine, believes this could be a potential cause of depression. He
has received a $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to further study this potential relationship.
“About 10 years ago, a colleague of mine, Dr. Grazyna Rajkowska, found that subjects who suffered from depression
had a deficiency of glia cells, and this has since been confirmed,” Ordway said. “While it remains to be proven,
we suspect that disruption of neuron-glia communication may be related to the shortage of glia.”
Ordway and his research colleagues at ETSU will use samples from a brain tissue bank of subjects who experienced depression
to look at the expression of genes that promote information exchange between neurons and glia.
“We know that there are life events, such as stress, that can cause depression,” Ordway said. “We are
curious to know if stress, through its effects on neurons, can contribute to the deficiency of glia in depression, or if there
is something genetic that underlies glia deficits and might explain why some are more prone to depression.” | 
