Bridging Chemistry and Neuroscience: Promise Inegbedion’s Quest to Decode the Brain’s Chemical Language

By Ugo Aliogo

As mental health challenges deepen across Nigeria, where depression, anxiety, and substance-related disorders quietly affect millions, scientists are probing deeper into the chemistry of the brain. The World Health Organization estimates that one in four Nigerians (around 50 million people) will experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime, yet less than 10 per cent have access to adequate treatment. Suicide rates and addiction cases have risen sharply in recent years, underscoring the urgency for scientific innovation in brain research.

At the crossroads of chemistry and neuroscience, new research is uncovering how neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin govern mood, cognition, and human behavior. One of the young scientists advancing this frontier is Promise Inegbedion, a biochemist from Edo State and doctoral researcher at the University of Arizona, United States. His work focuses on the real-time measurement of neurotransmitter release, a process central to how the brain communicates internally. By combining electrochemical methods such as voltammetry with mass spectrometry, he captures fleeting molecular signals that occur within milliseconds, data vital for understanding the chemical basis of mental disorders.

Inegbedion’s approach seeks to bridge laboratory science and clinical relevance. By mapping how neurotransmitters fluctuate during emotion, motivation, learning, and memory, his research could help clarify why these systems fail in conditions such as depression, Parkinson’s disease, and addiction, disorders that are often underdiagnosed and undertreated in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the Nigerian National Mental Health Survey (2022), only 300 psychiatrists serve a population exceeding 200 million, and most health institutions lack the equipment to study brain chemistry in real time.
Nigeria, like many developing nations, continues to struggle with limited neuroscience infrastructure and inadequate mental health funding, with government expenditure on mental health accounting for less than 4 percent of the national health budget. Inegbedion’s work, while based abroad, speaks directly to this gap. He represents a growing movement of Nigerian scientists leveraging global partnerships to adapt advanced analytical tools for cost-effective, homegrown research models.

Techniques such as fast-scan cyclic voltammetry and microcapillary separation platforms, once confined to well-funded Western laboratories, are being reimagined for local contexts. These innovations could, in time, enable Nigerian laboratories to monitor neurotransmitter changes in animal models of mental illness, an essential step toward indigenous neuropharmacological research.

Beyond the technical achievement, Inegbedion’s work highlights a broader philosophy: that scientific inquiry should ultimately serve society. In a country where social and environmental pressures, from unemployment to displacement, compound mental health problems, understanding how brain chemistry responds to chronic stress or trauma could inform context-specific interventions for addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Recent estimates suggest that over 60 percent of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria show symptoms of trauma-related disorders, yet access to counseling or medical support remains limited.

His focus on interdisciplinary collaboration, linking chemistry, biology, and psychology, reflects a wider shift toward integrated research ecosystems capable of turning lab findings into public health solutions. “The goal,” he explains, “is not only to measure molecules but to understand how those molecules translate into emotion and behavior, and how that understanding can guide better treatment.”
Colleagues describe Inegbedion as methodical and deeply inquisitive, a researcher who merges technical mastery with social awareness. His trajectory mirrors that of an emerging generation of Nigerian scientists determined to tackle complex local challenges through global science.

As Nigeria grapples with its rising mental health burden, studies like Inegbedion’s illuminate a pathway toward evidence-based policy and care. By connecting molecules to minds, and chemistry to care, his research embodies a broader vision: ensuring that the language of science speaks directly to the realities of everyday life.