Oregon scientists to study effects of herb on Alzheimer's disease

• A study of the potential therapeutic effects of the dietary supplement gotu kola is among seven research projects being funded this year by Oregon's Tax Check-Off Program for Alzheimer's Disease Research.
• Amala Soumyanath, Ph.D., associate professor of neurology, Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, will use the $25,000 grant to continue her work on gotu kola, also known as Centella asiatica.
• Previous studies, in collaboration with Joseph Quinn, M.D., and Bruce Gold, Ph.D., at OHSU, have shown that gotu kola extracts reverse behavioral deficits in a mouse model for Alzheimer's disease and had protective effects on neuronal cells cultured in the laboratory.
• The title of her project is "Centella asiatica - a potential therapy for Alzheimer's disease."
• "What we plan to do is to conduct in vitro tests using neuronal cells taken from animals, or cultured human neuronal cells to look at ways gotu kola may have beneficial effects in the nervous system in protecting neurons," Soumyanath said.
• - "Annotation and Automatic Approximation of Language-use Metrics for Detection of Mild Cognitive Impairment," Brian Roark, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science and engineering, Center for Spoken Language Understanding, OHSU OGI School of Science and Engineering, $25,000.
• Grant recipients are determined by the Alzheimer's Research Partnership, an alliance of scientists and administrators from OHSU, Providence Health System in Oregon, Kaiser Permanente, the Oregon chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, Portland State University and Oregon State University.
• Grants are awarded to clinical investigators and basic scientists for clinical, biological, behavioral or health system research that will advance understanding, treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease.
• She said gotu kola was chosen for closer study from a group of herbs she was examining because "this particular herb came out showing some interesting effects in animals and cell models.