The University of Birmingham’s Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research has been awarded £1.68m for a five-year research programme into intracranial hypertension and to develop a treatment for a rare condition that can lead to blindness, it has been announced.
Leading researcher Professor Alexandra Sinclair has received the award from the Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust to investigate Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension (IIH).
The programme also aims to reveal the mechanisms behind other conditions that feature raised brain pressure, such as traumatic brain injury and hydrocephalus. The findings could help to treat raised intracranial pressure associated with space flight.
The research will include a clinical trial to evaluate an innovative new treatment, which was discovered by Prof Sinclair and patented by University of Birmingham Enterprise.
Prof Sinclair, who runs one of the world’s largest clinical services for people with IIH, said: “Although the headaches experienced by people with raised intracranial pressure are overwhelming, long-term and disabling, we lack effective therapies to treat raised intracranial pressure, and there are no dedicated headache treatments. The drug trial will aim to not only deliver a new treatment, but also further understanding of what causes the headache in IIH.”
NASA’s Chief Health and Medical Officer Dr James Polk said the new research may have far reaching implications, giving important clues on monitoring and treatment that can be used not only on the ground, but potentially in space.
“Although our mechanism for vision change and potential elevations in intracranial pressure in astronauts may be due to the prolonged physiologic changes from weightlessness, we share some significant similarities,” he said.
Shelly Williamson, chair of the patient charity IIH UK, added: “IIH devastates lives, with agonising headache caused by the raised brain pressure being the most reported symptom. To have a drug that works on both brain pressure and headache, that is well tolerated, would be amazing as would research into the mechanistic causes of headache in IIH.”
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