Neurodegenerative Diseases News and Research

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Targeting the Hedgehog pathway could be used in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases

Aberrant activation of the Hedgehog (Hh) pathway has been associated with numerous malignancies including basal cell carcinoma, medulloblastoma, and pancreatic cancer. Several reports also suggest that positive regulators of the Hh pathway could be used in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

27 Feb 2005

Diagnosis of prions in patients should utilize novel strategy, conformation-dependent immunoassay

A technique for detecting prions in tissue, developed in recent years by UCSF scientists, is significantly more sensitive than the diagnostic procedures currently used to detect the lethal particles in samples of brain tissue from patients, according to a study performed by a UCSF team.

22 Feb 2005

Programmed cell death may provide clues to cancer and autoimmune diseases therapies

Dartmouth Medical School geneticists have found links in the cell death machinery of worms and mammals, opening new avenues for studying and targeting a process vital to development and implicated in cancer and autoimmune diseases.

16 Feb 2005

Research confirms how early-life events shape later physiology

Underscoring the value of good prenatal care, new research suggests that early infection may create a cognitive vulnerability that appears later during stress on the immune system.

8 Feb 2005

Fundamental question of cell death answered

Chunying Du, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator at the Stowers Institute, has published findings that reveal a previously unknown pathway of Bruce, the gene encoding a protein that inhibits apoptosis, or programmed cell death.

10 Jan 2005

Paclitaxel may benefit Alzheimer's and Parkinson's movement disorders

Angiotech Pharmaceuticals have announced that a preclinical study published in today's early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights the positive effects of Paxceed on movement disorders commonly seen in diseases known as taupathies, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

27 Dec 2004

Cancer drug paclitaxel may reduce the adverse effects of Alzheimer's disease

In a preclinical efficacy trial, the cancer drug paclitaxel (Paxceed)–which exerts its effects by binding to and stabilizing microtubules inside cells–reduced the adverse effects of Alzheimer's disease (AD)-like pathology in a mouse model.

20 Dec 2004

Non-invasive brain-computer interface offers more control than once thought

A brain-computer interface (BCI) that translates electrical signals detected from the scalp into a user's commands offers comparable precision, speed and accuracy to systems that rely on electrodes surgically implanted in the brain, researchers at the Department of Health's Wadsworth Center laboratories have shown.

7 Dec 2004

Family experience guides Alzheimer’s research

After watching his father struggle with and ultimately succumb to Alzheimer’s disease, ASU professor Michael Sierks shifted his research focus from starch hydrolyzing to neurodegenerative diseases.

18 Nov 2004

Researchers find mutations in a multifunctional protein cause Parkinsonism

A team of researchers at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. and colleagues in Canada and Germany have discovered a gene and six mutations of it that cause symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

18 Nov 2004

Eating apples may protect against Alzheimer's and Parkinsonism

A group of chemicals in apples could protect the brain from the type of damage that triggers such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinsonism, according to two new studies from Cornell University food scientists.

18 Nov 2004

Research speeds development of brain-controlled devices that may allow amputees and paraplegics to use their limbs

New research is speeding the development of brain-controlled devices that may soon allow amputees and paraplegics to use their limbs.

28 Oct 2004

Key discovery toward understanding mechanism associated with uncontrollable muscular movements

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's and Huntington's exhibit loss of nerve function in different ways, from memory lapses to uncontrollable muscular movements, but it is now believed that these diseases share many common molecular mechanisms.

22 Oct 2004

Robotic microscope shows how mutant Huntington's disease protein affects neurons

Using a specially designed robotic microscope to study cultured cells, researchers have found evidence that abnormal protein clumps called inclusion bodies in neurons from people with Huntington's disease (HD) prevent cell death.

13 Oct 2004

Dietary iron imbalances increase the odds of developing Parkinson's disease

You might want to toss those iron-fortified vitamins, because absent a diagnosed deficiency too much of a good thing can be bad.

12 Oct 2004

Researchers analyze the mechanisms and proteins that underlie mitochondria

New findings explaining the complicated process by which the "energy substations" of human cells split apart and recombine may lay the groundwork for new treatment approaches to a wide range of diseases, including some cancers and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

12 Oct 2004

Amyloid growth can occur independently of oligomers

Improperly folded proteins are normally destroyed. But in a wide range of diseases, including prion (from proteinaceous and infectious) diseases and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson disease and Alzheimer disease, amyloid fibrils, or plaques--misshapen proteins that aggregate into characteristic ropelike configurations--accumulate in tissue.

22 Sep 2004

Omega-3 supplement may help protect against Alzheimer's

Higher intake of fatty, cold-water fish (such as tuna, salmon, and mackerel) has long been associated with a lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's and epidemiological studies suggest that dietary supplements of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids might also protect against Alzheimer's disease.

1 Sep 2004

Zinc plays a crucial role in blindness

Dartmouth Medical School researchers in their quest to find cures for inherited diseases have found that zinc plays a crucial role in blindness in over one million people worldwide.

18 Aug 2004

Study on RNAi technology targeting neurodegenerative diseases

Sirna Therapeutics has announced the publication of preclinical studies evaluating RNA interference-based therapies for a class of inherited neurodegenerative diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) in the current issue of Nature Medicine.

16 Aug 2004