As New Zealand's population continues to age, a rising tide of problems linked to neurodegenerative disease and stroke threatens to overwhelm our future healthcare system.
But in research laboratories, including at the University of Otago, a quiet revolution has already begun, which could eventually help meet a growing brain health challenge that already costs this country more than a billion dollars a year in direct healthcare costs alone.
University of Otago neuroscientist Prof Cliff Abraham established and was the inaugural director of the Otago University's Brain Health Research Centre.
And Prof Abraham, of the Otago psychology department, points out that the overall ''cost to society' of these brain disorders is ''vastly high'' - including lost production and the wider social impact- and far exceeds direct healthcare costs.
''By 2036, one in four New Zealanders aged over 65 will be disabled by an ageing-related brain disorder.
''These disorders are accompanied by immense personal, social, economic and healthcare costs that will increase quite dramatically with time.''
And these disorders impose ''huge physical and emotional strains placed on individuals, family and whanau''.
''There's a huge cost to doing nothing,'' he warns.
But, far from doing nothing in the face of the growing threat, brain health researchers at Otago University, Auckland University and elsewhere in the country, are already joining forces to form a new Government-funded Centre for Research Excellence (Core), which will come into being from January 1 next year.
And this Core seems likely to help develop revolutionary new approaches to early diagnosis and new therapies for devastating neurological disorders.
Prof Abraham will co-direct the new collaborative centre, called Brain Research New Zealand - Rangahau Roro Aotearoa, with Prof Richard Faull, of Auckland University.
The national brain research centre will focus on ageing-related neurological disorders, which are a ''major problem'' in New Zealand and most Western societies.
It is hoped to ''keep the quality of life going'' for longer by detecting problems earlier and by developing more effective therapies that will help reduce the high human toll on affected individuals, their caregivers and families.
''We are quite excited about the potential of both the biomarker and therapy research that we are undertaking.''
Brain health researchers were ''very interested'' in the therapeutic potential of a protein, called secreted amyloid precursor protein alpha, that has the potential to both rescue memory ability, and prevent nerve cell loss at the same time.
It was important to detect Alzheimer's disease in its early stages, when treatments were most likely to be effective.
Otago University researchers, including Dr Joanna Williams, Prof Warren Tate, Prof Bob Knight and neurologist Dr Nick Cutfield, had already ''made the first steps'' in showing that particular blood molecules could be used in a potential new blood test for earlier diagnosis. The new centre involves a grouping of about 70 principal investigators or associate investigators.
And it will draw the country's ''world-class brain research capability''into a cohesive national team involving the Centre for Brain Research at Auckland University, Otago's Brain Health Research Centre, AUT University and the New Zealand Brain Research Institute in Christchurch. The latter involves researchers from both Canterbury University and Otago.
The researchers also aim to develop new rehabilitative treatment strategies for conditions such as stroke and tinnitus, and to communicate with the public and to promote effective strategies for disease prevention and rehabilitation.
The new centre will focus on four main themes: ageing and disease mechanisms, disease biomarkers, harnessing brain plasticity, and testing new therapies and lifestyle interventions.
No new ''bricks and mortar'' will be involved, but the centre will mean more PhD and postdoctoral researchers working on brain health-linked matters in Dunedin and elsewhere.
It was expected that a ''significant proportion'' of the $5 million per annum provided through the initiative would come to Dunedin, but funding distribution for the new national network had yet to be finalised, he said.
The funding and Core standing would ''help researchers leverage additional support from other funding bodies'', as well as the philanthropy needed to support initiatives, such as establishing a network of dementia research clinics, in Christchurch and Dunedin, as well as in Auckland, where a research clinic was already operating.
Prof Abraham has been interested since his university undergraduate days in ''the mysteries of how the brain normally stores memory''.
And he has been ''eager'' to contribute to international research which aims to make a difference in ''major disease processes'' that destroy memories, such as in Alzheimer's disease.
He grew up on a small farm in Hagerstown, a town in western Maryland, in the United States.
As a child, he had no ''great aspirations'' for a future career, but ''if I could have been a professional sportsperson of any kind, I would have been ecstatic''.
And how does he relax, when not at work?''Travelling with my wife, reading, gardening, recreational sports, sport coaching.''
And despite the size of the challenges ahead, Prof Abraham is optimistic about the future, and notes that stroke incidence, for example, is going down among Caucasians, although ''unfortunately not yet in Maori or Pasifika populations''.
SNAPSHOT
Name and age: Cliff Abraham, 60.
Occupation: Professor and neuroscientist.
Qualifications: Include PhD in neuroscience, University of Florida.
Short work history:1981-84 Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Otago; and at University of Gothenburg, Sweden; 1986 lecturer, Otago University; professor, 1997.
Proudest achievement: Establishing and directing Otago University's Brain Health Research Centre.
THE CHALLENGE
TO UNDERSTAND THE BIOLOGY OF THE AGEING BRAIN AND DEVELOP NEW THERAPIES AND BETTER CLINICAL AND COMMUNITY CARE TO ENHANCE LIFELONG BRAIN HEALTH
What is your research about?
My main focus is on the neural mechanisms of memory in both normal and diseased brains.
Why is it important?
Memory is fundamental to all cognition, and so it is critical to understand the detailed molecular mechanisms of how memories are stored and maintained, so that we can develop ways to improve memory and thus cognition under conditions of brain damage or disease.
Most interesting aspect of your research?
The investigations of how nerve cells self-regulate their own ability to store memories.
In what way is it unique?
It is well known now that connections between nerve cells can change as a result of experience, i.e. the nerve cells are ''plastic'', and that this is fundamental to how memories are stored. But the self-regulation of this ability to store memories is not widely recognised and poorly studied, and my lab and our colleagues are leaders in this relatively new field.
