Nerve News and Research

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3D view of neurons provided by new technique

A new technique that marries a fast-moving laser beam with a special microscope that look at tissues in different optical planes will enable scientists to get a three-dimensional view of neurons or nerve cells as they interact, said Baylor College of Medicine scientists in a report that appears in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

27 Apr 2008

DNA vaccines may offer hope in multiple sclerosis

Authors from the VA North Texas Health Care System Neurology Section and the Department of Neurology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have highlighted the potential benefits for DNA-based vaccine administration in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

24 Apr 2008

New discovery on how memory is stored

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine are the first to show that the location of protein-destroying "machines" in nerve cells in the brain may play an important role in how memories are formed - a finding with potential implications for treating Alzheimer's and other brain diseases. The research is published in the current issue of Learning & Memory.

23 Apr 2008

Major step forward in understanding how memory works

Our ability to remember the objects, places and people within our environment is essential for everyday life, although the importance of this is only fully appreciated when recognition memory beings to fail, as in Alzheimer's disease.

23 Apr 2008

New advance in use of oncolytic viruses as novel cancer treatments

Combining a herpes virus genetically altered to express a drug-enhancing enzyme with a chemotherapy drug effectively and safely reduced the size of highly malignant human sarcoma grafted into mice.

22 Apr 2008

Bionic eye promises to restore sight to the blind

A team of eye specialists at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital ave fitted "bionic eyes" to two men in their 50s to partially restore their eyesight.

22 Apr 2008

Mending tendons without surgery

James McGillicuddy was not getting good news. Three years after arriving at Stanford as one of the nation's top high school football recruits, he'd been stuck on the sidelines the entire time by a torn tendon that, even with two surgeries, just wouldn't stay fixed. More surgery would not help, his doctors told him, but they did have one last option to offer him.

21 Apr 2008

Mature B cells reprogrammed to stem-cell-like state

Fully mature, differentiated B cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state, without the use of an egg, according to a study published in the April 18 issue of Cell.

18 Apr 2008

New insights on early Parkinson's provided by advanced MRI

Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the brain affecting movement, speech, mood, behavior, thinking and sensation for which there is no known cause or cure.

17 Apr 2008

Yeast cells used to screen for potential Lou Gehrig's disease drugs

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine are developing a novel approach to screen for drugs to combat neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, using yeast cells.

17 Apr 2008

Direct reprogramming of terminally differentiated mature B lymphocytes to pluripotency

Fully mature, differentiated B cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state, without the use of an egg according to a study published in the April 18 issue of Cell.

17 Apr 2008

Measurement technology to investigate neurovascular coupling

Every two minutes in Germany, one person suffers a stroke. About one third of the affected do not survive the sudden lack of blood in the brain, many others are left with serious disabilities.

17 Apr 2008

Plastic surgeons to develop groundbreaking therapies for war injury research

Members of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) will play a pivotal role over the next five years developing groundbreaking therapies to better treat U.S. soldiers critically injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

17 Apr 2008

Blood vessels: The pied piper for growing nerve cells

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that blood vessels in the head can guide growing facial nerve cells with blood pressure controlling proteins.

11 Apr 2008

Researchers close in on origins of main ingredient of Alzheimer's plaques

The ability of brain cells to take in substances from their surface is essential to the production of a key ingredient in Alzheimer's brain plaques, neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have learned.

10 Apr 2008

Potential drug target identified for diabetes by studying novel gut-brain-liver circuit

Scientists at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute have discovered a novel signaling pathway between three organs - the gut, the brain, and the liver - which lowers blood sugar when activated.

10 Apr 2008

Methamphetamine addiction mechanism discovered

Researchers have identified, for the first time, long-term changes in the brain circuitry of methamphetamine-addicted mice that can explain why the craving of addiction is so stubborn and long-lived.

10 Apr 2008

How protein sludge accumulates in Alzheimer's

Researchers have identified a key mechanism by which the protein sludge that kills brain cells accumulates in Alzheimer's disease (AD).

10 Apr 2008

Special filter quickly and effectively removes deadly vCJD protein from blood

Amid concern that recipients of certain blood transfusions may risk infection with a deadly protein responsible for the human form of mad cow disease, researchers in Canada now report development of a special filter that quickly and effectively removes the protein from blood.

9 Apr 2008

Parkinson transplants survive at least 16 years

Transplanted cells can survive in the brain for over one and half decade. However, some of the transplanted cells developed Parkinson-like features which is very surprising.

9 Apr 2008