Australian researchers to partner U.S in combating stress-related disease among vets

An Australian research team will partner with an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense in a major campaign aimed at helping war veterans suffering from debilitating, stress-related inflammation diseases.

The U.S Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an arm of the government's defense department, is mounting a major study into how peripheral nerves may hold the key to treating chronic pain and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), such as Chrone 's disease and ulcerative colitis, which are prevalent among ex- servicemen.

On Tuesday it was announced that Australia's Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, based in Melbourne, would receive 4.3 million U.S dollars as part of the four-year program.

"There seems to be a higher incidence of these diseases in service personnel in the U.S," associate of the program and professor the Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health Michael McKinley told Xinhua on Tuesday.

"We're trying to understand the physiology of the bowel, and understand how the nervous system may influence the onset of these diseases."

Describing IBD as a "nasty" affliction, McKinley said that 13 to 17 out of 100,000 people in the general population were affected by them. But that incidence is thought to be much higher among servicemen who have returned from war zones.

DARPA will partner with seven research teams, six of which are from the U.S, to tackle certain areas of the development plan.

The Florey Institute, which has also enlisted the support of Austin Health, the University of Melbourne and Melbourne's Bionic Institute, will address the rise of stress-related IBD in former soldiers, which can trigger lung and gut diseases.

Specifically, the program will "map" the nerve pathways triggered by inflammation of the intestines. More broadly, it will aim to create a device capable of simulating the periphery nerves, which would be the equivalent of a cardiac pacemaker.

"The idea is to find the appropriate nerves," McKinley told Xinhua.

"If we discover these nerves we can stimulate them with an electronic pulses to reduce inflammation in the area."

McKinley said preliminary data had shown there may be both " inflammatory" and "anti-inflammatory" nerves in the body. The joint program is expected to be finished in 2019. Endi