Nerve News and Research

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Scientists zero in on the cellular machinery that enables neurons to fire

Toy robots with removable body parts - you probably had fun swapping their heads, imagining how it would affect their behavior. Scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health have been performing similar experiments on ion channels - pores in our nerve cells - to sort out the channels' key functional parts.

15 Nov 2007

Most seniors with diabetes have at least one other major chronic medical condition

As if diabetes weren't enough to handle, a new study shows that 92 percent of older people with the disease have at least one other major chronic medical condition - and that nearly half have three or more major diseases besides their diabetes.

14 Nov 2007

Implanting myoblasts may improve severe urinary incontinence

Estimates are that up to 70 million people worldwide may be suffering from severe urinary incontinence. A major cause of urinary incontinence is a deficiency of the urethral sphincter muscle, often associated with trauma during child birth, resulting from prostate surgery, or due to aging.

14 Nov 2007

Abnormal glutamine repeats interfere with key transcription factor, leading to neurodegeneration

Although repeating sequences of three nucleotides encoding some of the bodies' 20 amino acids are a normal part of protein composition, abnormal expansion of trinucleotide repeats is the known cause of multiple inherited neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington disease.

14 Nov 2007

Targeted muscle reinnervation allows prosthetic arms to brain's signals

Motorized prosthetic arms can help amputees regain some function, but these devices take time to learn to use and are limited in the number of movements they provide.

13 Nov 2007

Researchers image a biomarker of neurogenesis

Mirjana Maletic-Savatic, M.D., Ph.D, and co-investigators from Stony Brook University Medical Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have discovered a way to image a biomarker of neural stem and progenitor cells (NPCs) in the living human brain.

13 Nov 2007

Spinal cord reconstruction following injury

A new study has identified what may be a pivotal first step towards the regeneration of nerve cells following spinal cord injury, using the body's own stem cells.

13 Nov 2007

Acne drug Roaccutane may disrupt serotonin production

New research has found that a drug used to treat severe forms of acne reduces the availability of the chemical serotonin, low levels of which have been linked to aggression and clinical depression.

13 Nov 2007

Overexpression of neuroglobin reduces severity of Alzheimer's disease in mice

Mice genetically engineered to both overproduce the protein neuroglobin and to develop Alzheimer's disease (AD) had a much milder form of the disease when compared to mice engineered to have AD alone, researchers at the Buck Institute for Age Research have reported.

13 Nov 2007

New target for MS treatment found using old drug

A drug currently used to treat high blood pressure and heart failure has been found to reduce the symptoms of multiple sclerosis in mice.

13 Nov 2007

Brain may have important influences on glucose metabolism and insulin action

An appetite-suppressing chemical also improves glucose tolerance and lowers insulin levels in obese and diabetic mice, researchers report in the November issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press.

13 Nov 2007

Anti-inflammation molecule helps fight MS-like disease

An immune system messenger molecule that normally helps quiet inflammation could be an effective tool against multiple sclerosis (MS). Neurology researchers led by Abdolmohamad Rostami, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and the Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience in Philadelphia, have found that the protein interkeukin-27 (IL-27) helped block the onset or reverse symptoms in animals with an MS-like disease.

13 Nov 2007

Microfluidics chips used to watch worm behavior

They wriggle and turn and explore new territory until they find something edible, and then they stay the course until the food disappears.

13 Nov 2007

Research reveals critical knowledge about the nervous system

Uncover the neural communication links involved in myelination, the process of protecting a nerve's axon, and it may become possible to reverse the breakdown of the nervous system's electrical transmissions in such disorders as multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, diabetes and cancers of the nervous system.

6 Nov 2007