CONTACT: Doug Carlson, FSU College of Medicine
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

Jan. 25, 2017

FSU RESEARCH LINKS BRAIN SHAPE TO PERSONALITY DIFFERENCES

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — New research reveals the shape of our brain can provide surprising clues about how we behave and our risk of developing mental health disorders.

Florida State University College of Medicine Associate Professor Antonio Terracciano joined a team of researchers from the United States, United Kingdom and Italy to examine the connection between personality traits and brain structure. Their study, published today in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, looked at differences in the anatomy of the cortex (the outer layer of the brain) as indexed by three measures — the thickness, area and amount of folding in the cortex — and how these measures related to the five major personality traits.

The traits include neuroticism, the tendency to be in a negative emotional state; extraversion, the tendency to be sociable and enthusiastic; openness, how open-minded a person is; agreeableness, a measure of altruism and cooperativeness; and conscientiousness, a measure of self-control and determination.

The study involved an imaging dataset from more than 500 individuals made publicly available by the Human Connectome Project, an ambitious effort by the National Institutes of Health to map neural pathways underlying human brain function.

“Evolution has shaped our brain anatomy in a way that maximizes its area and folding by reducing thickness of the cortex,” said senior author Luca Passamonti from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge. “It’s like stretching and folding a rubber sheet — this increases the surface area, but at the same time the sheet itself becomes thinner. We refer to this as the ‘cortical stretching hypothesis.’”

“Cortical stretching is a key evolutionary mechanism that enabled human brains to expand rapidly while still fitting into our skulls, which grew at a slower rate than the brain,” Terracciano added. “Interestingly, this same process occurs as we develop and grow in the womb and throughout childhood, adolescence and into adulthood: The thickness of the cortex tends to decrease while the area and folding increase.”

In other research, Terracciano and others have shown that as people get older, neuroticism goes down — people become better at handling emotions — while conscientiousness and agreeableness go up — people become progressively more responsible and less antagonistic.

The researchers found that high levels of neuroticism, which may predispose people to develop neuro-psychiatric disorders, were associated with increased thickness as well as reduced area and folding in some regions of the cortex, such as the prefrontal-temporal cortices.

In contrast, openness, which is a personality trait linked with curiosity, creativity, and a preference for variety and novelty, was associated with the opposite pattern: reduced thickness and an increase in area and folding in some prefrontal cortices.

Brains imaged as part of the Human Connectome Project all belonged to healthy individuals 22-36 years old with no history of neuro-psychiatric or other major medical problems. The relation between brain structure and personality traits in young and healthy people can change as people age and provide a reference frame for better understanding the brain structures in conditions such as autism, depression or Alzheimer’s disease.

“Linking how brain structure is related to basic personality traits is a crucial step to improving our understanding of the link between the brain morphology and particular mood, cognitive or behavioral disorders,” Passamonti said. “We also need to have a better understanding of the relation between brain structure and function in healthy people to figure out what is different in people with neurological and psychiatric disorders.”

Reference
Riccelli, R et al. Surface-based morphometry reveals the neuroanatomical basis of the five-factor Model.Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience; DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsw175

CONTACT: Doug Carlson, College of Medicine
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu
@FSUResearch

By Julie Jordan
Jan. 26, 2017

INVESTORS, NIH EXCITED ABOUT FLORIDA STATE BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH TARGETING RARE EYE DISEASE

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida State University College of Medicine Professor Michael Blaber has spent years perfecting an artificial human protein for stimulating cell growth while also learning about the equally complex world of venture capitalists.

Now, with the significant help of the National Institutes of Health and $5.2 million from five investment firms, he is closer to providing relief for an incurable eye condition called Fuchs’ dystrophy. This disorder causes swelling in the cornea that can lead to cloudy vision and general discomfort.

“Four to 6 percent of people over the age of 40 or 50 will get this,” said Blaber, co-founder of the biopharmaceutical company Trefoil Therapeutics. “It will progress in many cases to requiring corneal transplant. This would provide a new treatment for them.”

But in the world of commercialization, a good idea in a good lab can progress only so far without outside financial support. Blaber’s technology, licensed to Trefoil Therapeutics, has reached a milestone by attracting Series A (or Series 1) financing, said Brent Edington, FSU’s director of technology commercialization. This is the first round of financing given to a new business after seed capital has been provided.

“The funding is a significant step for the technology developed by Dr. Blaber,” Edington said, “and for commercialization of FSU College of Medicine technologies in general.”

The official name for what Trefoil Therapeutics is developing is TTHX1114.

Blaber had been working on fibroblast growth factors (FGF-1) that cause more types of cells in the body to divide and grow than any other known growth factor. Scientists have been widely interested in it as a tool for regenerative medicine.

At first, Blaber, using an FGF-1 mutant, thought that this technology could be used to grow new blood vessels for the heart. But because of the expense and risk involved, investors pulled out. Next, he attempted to apply his growth factor mutant to wound healing. It also was unsuccessful in attracting investor funding.

So Blaber shifted his focus to the eye and Fuchs’ dystrophy. Investors were instantly attracted.

“There’s no drug you can give to slow Fuchs’ dystrophy down,” Blaber said. “There is nothing other than transplant, and the transplant is not foolproof either. So anything that you develop for that is new, not available. There is nothing to compete with.”

Trefoil Therapeutics also will receive assistance from the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases collaborative research agreement. Applicants to this program are selected through a competitive process from an evaluation of the most promising proposals for these prestigious public-private partnerships.

NCATS researchers will move TTHX1114 forward through the preclinical phase, including development of plans for clinical trials and submission of other Food and Drug Administration requirements.

“The funding from the NIH is huge,” Blaber said. “They’re going to be doing all this testing to submit to the Food and Drug Administration. Fuchs’ dystrophy is a rare disease, and they have special funding for that. It’s considered an ‘orphan drug,’ and it has a protected corner of the market.”

Blaber said he is proud the work has gotten so far. It is the first therapeutic derived from research in the FSU College of Medicine to make it through to venture-based Series A financing.

He’s pleased for another, more important reason: “I’m proud of producing a compound that will potentially help people on a large scale.”

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