Breathing is supposed to just happen. When it doesn’t, more than your breath can be taken away. Babies who die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome don’t suffocate, they stop breathing — their drive to breathe fails.

To better understand what drives breathing and what can cause that drive to fail, neuroscientist Barbara Taylor of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Institute of Arctic Biology uses tadpoles as a model to look at the part of the brain that controls breathing to show how this essential function works.

The desire to breathe, Taylor explains, is driven by the body’s need to rid itself of toxic carbon dioxide (C02) buildup in the cells. “When CO2 levels in the body are high, nerve cells in the brain send electrical signals that prompt the body to breathe and expel the toxin,” says Taylor.

A breakdown or error in those electrical signals is thought to be a factor in SIDS.

SIDS in Alaska
Most of the reliable statistics on infant deaths caused by SIDS in Alaska come from the state Division of Public Health. According to the 2008 Alaska Maternal Infant Mortality Review — an organization created to compile information on infant deaths in Alaska — 3.6 out of every thousand babies born in the state died. Of these deaths, more than 50% (or 1.54 infants out of 1000) were attributed to SIDS.

What makes this number particularly alarming is how it compares to SIDS deaths in the rest of the country. According to MIMR, 0.7 out of every 1000 infants born in the rest of the United States died of SIDS that same year. This makes Alaska’s SIDS death rate about twice as high as the rest of the country.

Between 1992 and 2001 Alaska Natives had twice the infant mortality risk of non-Natives, according to the state report “Findings of the Alaska Maternal-Infant Mortality Review.”

“It’s important to understand that SIDS is what’s called a diagnosis of exclusion, which means it’s a diagnosis of a medical condition doctors cannot positively identify from an exam or a test,” Taylor says. She hopes the work of her research team will contribute toward tests that can positively identify the risk factors for SIDS.

Studying breathing
Taylor’s research team begins their work by exposing tadpoles to one of two toxins long suspected to play a role in SIDS deaths - nicotine and alcohol. After removing the tadpole from its toxic environment, Taylor and her students then locate the brainstem, which controls breathing, and isolate it from the rest of the tadpole. They bathe the brainstem in excess carbon dioxide, which simulates the excess carbon dioxide a human might encounter, for example, when they are face down in a pillow.

The excess carbon dioxide should prompt a series of measurable, electrical signals in the brainstem telling the tadpole to breathe and get rid of the toxin. But Taylor has found that after exposure to nicotine or alcohol the electrical signals in the tadpole’s brainstem don’t always work as they should, which affects the organism’s drive to breathe.

Taylor wants to know if nicotine and alcohol cause the loss of neurons, or the loss of the connections between neurons (called synapses), or the chemical messengers released by neurons (called neurotransmitters). Taylor suspects that toxins interfere with synaptic connections, and that recovery is based on the neurons’ ability to change their connections – their plasticity.

For the past five years Taylor’s research has been funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, and for the next four years she will be funded by the National Science Foundation.

Teaching science
Creativity in the laboratory — and having fun in science — are two qualities readily apparent in Taylor’s lab. Music, inflatable frogs and barbeques are commonplace. This, perhaps, is one reason Taylor has been so successful mentoring dozens of students over the years.

Mark Gilbertson a senior at UAF majoring in biology with a busy academic schedule, is a regular presence in Taylor’s lab. “Even when I have a question about another class,” he says, “Dr. Taylor bends over backwards to help me find the answer. She’s extremely helpful. But it’s not all serious. There was that incident with the inflatable frog…”

Gilbertson explains that one day Taylor brought in “Jake” — a life-size inflatable frog created by students and dressed in coveralls and latex gloves. She hung it in the corner of the lab and when anything went wrong, the frogman got the blame. “It was just another way of bringing humor into the lab,” Gilbertson said. “She has frog cartoons, pictures and paraphernalia all over the place. It’s hard not to get inspired.”

Taylor always encourages fun as a means to gain insights in science. On Friday afternoons Taylor’s group gathers in the lab to try new and unusual experiments. “It’s largely an excuse to get the team together,” she says. “That playtime can be critical to our research. Plus, when you are playing in the lab it’s OK if you’re wrong.” Having the freedom to make mistakes, she says, is critical to learning.

Gilbertson recalls one Friday afternoon when Taylor decided to expose one of the brainstems to a chemical that inhibits signals between neurons – a chemical that tadpoles and all vertebrates make. “It was a totally spontaneous experiment and the results were totally unexpected,” he says. The tadpole’s respiration became unusually regular. “It was like clockwork; you could have set your watch by it.”

“Taylor exudes an enormous amount of energy,” Gilbertson says, “it is contagious to everyone around her. I’ve learned more than I ever thought possible.”

Construction of the new Life Sciences Facility has already begun on West Ridge — providing a much-needed new home for the hundreds of biology students, faculty and staff who are currently spread across the UAF campus. Finally.

The four-story, 101,000-square-foot, contemporary building — which has been in the works for almost a decade — is carefully designed to merge research laboratories, classrooms and interactive spaces to maximize learning opportunities for everyone. A 150-seat auditorium, a coffee bar, multiple small conference rooms and naturally-lighted offices and study spaces are in the plans. The new Life Sciences Facility will be connected to the Irving II Building by a tunnel.

All this comes to a discipline that is currently scattered across campus in four main buildings (Irving, Bunnell, West Ridge Research Building and Arctic Health), four trailers (temporary) and two organizations — the Institute of Arctic Biology and the Department of Biology and Wildlife.

Christa Mulder, the Biology and Wildlife department chair, is excited by the opportunities the new, centralized location holds. “We want our undergraduates to get exposure to research,” she says. “But right now our students stay on the other side of campus and don’t have the opportunity to see the active research faculty at UAF. But we can do this, we can show students that science is attractive and give them a chance to get involved.” The new building is designed to facilitate such teachable moments.

Construction is anticipated to take three years; groundbreaking took place in spring 2011. %

Growing up in Kotzebue — a somewhat isolated, coastal city in northwest Alaska with a population just over 3,000 people — Carla Nelson never expected to do science. But soon after she arrived at UAF, Chemistry Professor Thomas Clausen, director of the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, introduced her to Barbara Taylor and suggested she get some experience working in the laboratory. Nelson became one of dozens of undergraduates to work with Taylor in recent years.

In 2008, Nelson received support through ANSEP and a grant from the National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Mentoring program that allowed her to get a job in Taylor’s neuroscience laboratory.

Nelson is a senior majoring in chemistry intent on becoming a pharmacist. With a few years of research experience in Taylor’s lab on her resume and a full-time job at Denali Pharmacy, she has applied to seven pharmacy schools throughout the western United States.
“Carla is great at analyzing data in the lab,” explains Taylor. “She is very organized and has lots of common sense.” But the no-nonsense Nelson is simply thankful for the opportunities that working in Taylor’s laboratory have provided. “Working in Dr. Taylor’s lab opened a lot of doors for me,” she says. Hopefully that next open door will be to pharmacy school. %