New Grant Delves Into Question of How the Brain Tells the Bladder It’s Time to Go
By Chuck Carlson
It is one of the most common things we as human beings do. It is done, at least most times, with almost no thought but, of course, there are times we think of it far too much.
“It’s the simplest thing we do,” said Dr. Nathan Tykocki, MSU Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology. Then comes his simple question without a simple answer.
“But how do we know when to pee?”
The topic has been the subject of many research projects over the years, but for Dr. Tykocki and his research colleague, Dr. Sara Roccabianca, the Martin J. VanDerPloeg Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering with MSU’s College of Engineering, the answer remains elusive.
And that is what they hope a new five-year, $2.2 million National Institutes of Health grant will help provide.
It is known that when the bladder fills, it stretches to store the urine but must also remain stiff enough for the muscles to contract when it’s time to urinate. But, the two researchers said how we sense the need to urinate is still unclear.
“How does the bladder talk to the brain?” Dr. Roccabianca said. “It really does affect your life.”
The two researchers began conversations on the subject several years ago with Dr. Tykocki’s creation of a device to measure changes in the mouse bladder wall as it fills . He connected with Dr. Roccabianca, who was able to take the data collected from this device and turn it into new measures of how the bladder stretches as it fills.
Their hope is to understand how the structure of the bladder wall interacts with sensory nerves to create the feeling of bladder fullness, which is vital to understanding the pathology of bladder dysfunction. From there, new tools and drugs can be developed to look at various lower urinary tract problems.
“We’re trying to figure out what happens when everything goes right because we won’t we know what to do when everything goes wrong,” Dr. Roccabianca said. “We know more about the cardiovascular system, about the gastrointestinal system than we do about the bladder.”
And they hope their research over the next few years can pinpoint some of those answers. “Once we know what’s actually happening, we can treat it,” Dr. Tykocki said. “If we could just understand what makes you urinate, I’d be over the moon.”
“We’re developing new tools to answer the questions,” Dr. Roccabianca said. “What is that connection? We are building the foundation, and someone else will build the floor and the house.”