Neurons (green) generated from glia cells after expression of the transcription factors Neurogenin2; blue: nuclei. (Credit: ISF) The majority of cells in the human brain are not nerve cells but star-shaped glia cells, the so called “astroglia”. “Glia means “glue”, explains Götz. “As befits ...
Some studies have linked high levels of acrylamide to cancer in animals and neurological damage in humans. Despite uncertainties over acrylamide’s actual health effects at the levels found in food, there is heightened public awareness about this compound. The potential health effects of acrylamide and ways to reduce its content ...
The pictures to the left show a normally developed gonad and how oocytes (eggs) are situated. At the pic-tures to the right are shown examples of defects in the gonads and how the oocytes accumulate due to the lack of one of the C. ...
Stroke is the result of an infarction, or bleeding, within the brain, and it may lead to impaired movement, impaired sensation, and difficulties in cognitive function and speech. Approximately 30,000 people are affected by stroke each year in Sweden, and it is the most common cause of long-term dependence on ...
In both retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration ¡V two of the most common causes of vision loss ¡V the photoreceptor layer of the retina is destroyed, but the inner layers remain largely intact, still capable of responding to incoming signals and transmitting output signals to the brain’s visual cortex ...
"Based on these findings, physicians may be able to diagnose multiple sclerosis more accurately and identify patients at risk for developing progressive disease," said the study’s lead author, Rohit Bakshi, M.D., associate professor of neurology and radiology at Harvard Medical School and director of clinical MS-MRI at Brigham and ...
In a majority of cases, colorectal cancer is initiated by changes in a key protein -- beta-catenin. One of the roles of this protein is to enter the cell nucleus and activate gene expression. But in colorectal and other cancers, beta-catenin over-accumulates in the cell and inappropriately activates genes, leading ...
One possibility is to issue the channels a ticket straight to the cellular dumpster, discovered researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. A novel intracellular traffic coordinator pulls potassium channels from their job and whisks them to the recycling plant when not needed to put a damper on brain ...
Dr. Thomas Südhof (Credit: Image courtesy of UT Southwestern Medical Center) The researchers’ study also shows how the mutation affects nerve function and provides an animal model that might allow further study of the debilitating condition. "It’s an attempt to replicate, as best we can, a ...
It turns out that this gene, called disc1, makes a protein that serves as a sort of musical conductor for newly made nerve cells in the adult brain, guiding them to their proper locations at the appropriate tempo so they can seamlessly integrate into our complex and intertwined nervous system. ...
The finding -- that approximately 10 percent of the cells survive and have functional connections -- opens the door to new ways of thinking about fixing injured brains, said Dr. Michael Friedlander, chair of the department of neuroscience at BCM, and senior author of the paper. "Since those cells are ...
The findings also suggest that a dietary supplement similar to glucosamine may be useful as an oral therapy to correct these defects and to treat both the short-term and the long-term symptoms of the disease. "The findings raise the possibility that these may both be treated by metabolic therapy," said ...
Now scientists at Northwestern University have discovered why brain insulin signaling -- crucial for memory formation -- would stop working in Alzheimer’s disease. They have shown that a toxic protein found in the brains of individuals with Alzheimer’s removes insulin receptors from nerve cells, rendering those neurons insulin resistant. (The ...
Researchers from CNRS at the University of Bordeaux (France), University of Sevilla (Spain), INSERM Grenoble Institute of Neurosciences (France) and ESRF have studied the iron distribution in an in vitro model of neuronal cells that produce dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger between nerve cells in the mammalian ...
The study used a combination of capsaicin -- the substance that makes chili peppers hot -- and a drug called QX-314. This combination exploits a characteristic unique to pain-sensing neurons, also called nociceptors, in order to block their activity without impairing signals from other cells. In contrast, most pain ...
The tree bark compound, known as gambogic amide, behaves much like Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), a molecule found in the brain. NGF binds to TrkA, a neuronal receptor, and activates neuronal signaling. It is known that the loss of TrkA density correlates with neuronal atrophy and severe cognitive impairment such ...
A Johns Hopkins-based study of a group of 40 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients used a process called optical coherence tomography (OCT) to scan the layers of nerve fibers of the retina in the back of the eye, which become the optic nerve. The process, which uses a desktop machine similar ...
In their studies, the researchers sought to link the function of two known causative factors in AD--amyloid precursor protein (APP) and a particular form of the gene for the protein apolipoprotein E (apoE) that has been linked to higher late-onset AD risk. Mutations in APP are known to cause early-onset AD ...
Infants are more susceptible to seizures because their brains are developing at a rapid rate, making their brain cells ’excitable’. Their neurons are growing and making new connections with other nerve cells, which can disrupt normal brain activity and results in epilepsy. Infants have protective mechanisms in their brains to control ...
Researchers have discovered how cells in the developing ear make their own noise, long before the ear is able to detect sound around them. (Credit: iStockphoto/Hélène Vallée) The research team made their discovery while studying the properties of non-nerve cells in the ears of ...
In recent years, it has been theorized that chronic, low-grade tissue inflammation related to obesity contributes to insulin resistance, the major cause of Type 2 diabetes. In research done in mouse models, the UCSD scientists proved that, by disabling the macrophage inflammatory pathway, insulin resistance and the resultant Type ...
"The findings are significant because sleep problems can affect quality of life and may have adverse health consequences, such as promoting weight gain and insulin resistance," said Beatrice Golomb, M.D., lead author of the study and an associate professor of medicine and family and preventive medicine at the University of ...
Above: Neuronal tissue of a mouse with the receptor sortilin (wild type) -- the number of neurons is dramatically reduced after the induction of cell death due to spinal cord injury. Below: Neuronal tissue of a mouse without the sortilin receptor -- clearly ...
Images of brain cells taken before (above) and after seizures in live mice reveal loss of spines, small bumps on the surfaces of brain cell branches. Scientists believe these bumps may be helpful in processes that enable memory, and that loss of these ...
Alzheimer’s disease has several different causes. Since many patients have a close relative who also developed the disease, heredity is believed to be one of the most important factors. “There is a previously identified Alzheimer’s gene that indicates an elevated risk of developing the disease, but we want to find more ...
Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide, Paul Rolan, and postdoctoral fellow Dr Mark Hutchinson are part of a combined US and Australian research team which has made a breakthrough in revealing how opioid drugs such as morphine both relieve pain and also cause addiction. The Adelaide scientists and ...
In the cervical spinal cord, EB was clearly detected within the blood vessels (red, arrowheads) in the control C57BL/6J mice at (A, B, C) 12–13 weeks of age or (D, E) in the lumen of vessels (brilliant green) at 19–20 weeks of age. In ...
While effective treatment remains an elusive goal, new research by University of Illinois at Chicago chemists suggests a possible new approach. Yoshitaka Ishii, associate professor of chemistry, and his students managed to capture and characterize a crucial intermediate step in the formation of amyloid plaque fibers, or fibrils, showing tiny ...
According to the lead author on this study, Kamilla Miskowiak, MSc: "Although depression is often related to problems in the chemistry of the brain, recent evidence also suggests that there may be structural problems as well with nerve cells not being regenerated as fast as normal or suffering from toxic ...
Capturing Large-Molecule Fish with Small-Molecule Bait. A single layer of molecules (red lines) that resists biomolecule binding is first self-organized on a gold substrate. This film has inherent defects and when it is placed in a solution of tether molecules (blue lines), they ...