Lin awarded $2.3 million NIH grant to further study cognitive deficits in pneumonia patients

Mike Lin, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology and cell biology, is examining impaired cognitive function in patients with hospital-acquired pneumonia.

To further investigate the link between hospital-acquired pneumonia and impaired cognitive function, Mike Lin, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology and cell biology at the Whiddon College of Medicine, recently was awarded a $2.3 million five-year renewal grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

A collaboration between the University of South Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the study builds upon Lin’s previous research grant from the NIH, which totaled $1.7 million over a four-year period. 

Past collaborative studies found that patients in the intensive care unit who contracted bacterial pneumonia have elevated levels of cytotoxic species, which are substances that damage or kill cells. These cytotoxins can be found in several bodily fluids, including bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, cerebrospinal fluid and blood collected from the patients. The presence of cytotoxins indicates they may spread from the lung to the brain after a bacterial pneumonia infection, Lin said. 

“Using rodents as an animal model, our studies have shown that the cytotoxins recovered from the cerebrospinal fluid of pneumonia patients impair learning and memory, and our studies provide a mechanism that may help explain why many pneumonia patients suffer from cognitive deficits,” he said. 

In the next phase of their studies, researchers will dive further into identifying the cytotoxic species that are generated in and distributed from the lung after infection.

“This research is important because it links two seemingly unrelated organs together,” Lin explained. “This lung-brain axis is an example of an impairment that may start to manifest in the brain, perhaps even years after the primary lung injury has been cleared.” 

Co-investigators on the grant from USA include Ron Balczon, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology; and Troy Stevens, Ph.D., professor and chair of physiology and cell biology and director of the USA Center for Lung Biology. Co-investigators from UAB include Jean-Francois Pittet, M.D., and Brant Wagener, M.D., Ph.D.