Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Grants totaling $3.1 million have been awarded to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to study the effect of alcohol on the brain and potential treatment, UAMS announced Wednesday.

The grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health, will advance the work of three UAMS professors in the Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences of the College of Medicine, according to a news release.

The three are working on ways to prevent the neurological harm caused by alcohol.

They have found in earlier studies that drinking causes loss of neurons in the brain and that glial cells, which support and protect neurons, are the primary targets of alcohol.

Also, the researchers have found that alcohol’s impact on the glial cells increases the vulnerability of neurons to alcohol damage.