READ MOREPotassium Channels are vital gateways in all body cells, and play a particular role in nerve cells for propagating action potentials, or nerve impulses. Now, researchers at the US NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), have linked mutations in potassium channel genes (KCNC3) to different types of spinocerebellar ataxias, cerebellar degeneration, and a form of mental retardation. The mutated KCNC3 genes are linked to nerve death in these disorders. In addition, abnormal potassium channels have been found in Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, and Huntington's Disease--all severe progressively degenerative neuronal maladies.

"This type of gene has never before been linked to nerve cell death," says Stefan Pulst, M.D., of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the new study. The report will appear in the February 26, 2006, advance online publication of Nature Genetics.*