CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 22 (UPI) -- A U.S. study has determined a new role for a brain protein in a finding that might lead to new treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have shown the same proteins -- septins -- that enable a yeast cell to bud into two daughter cells also helps neurons grow branch-like protrusions that are used to communicate with other neurons.

"In yeast, septin is localized exactly at the neck between the yeast mother cell and the bud or emerging daughter cell," said study leader Professor Morgan Sheng. "Amazingly, we found septin protein localized at the base of the neck of neuronal dendritic spines and at the branchpoint of dendritic branches."

Moreover, in the cultured hippocampal neurons the researchers used in the study, septin was found essential for normal branching and spine formation. An abundance of septin made dendrites grow and proliferate, while a dearth of septin made them small and malformed.

The research that also included Alyson Simonetta and Matthew Batterton of MIT, Picower postdoctoral associates Tomoko Tada and Dieter Edbauer and Makoto Kinoshita of Kyoto University appears in the journal Current Biology.