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Brain Canada issues statement reinforcing need for government support for brain research funding

Brain Canada today issued a statement reinforcing the pressing need for targeted Federal government support for brain research funding in Canada.

2 Apr 2011

Loss of SKIP sensitizes cancer cells to apoptotic effects of DNA damage-inducing anticancer drugs

When cells find themselves in a tight spot, the cell cycle regulator p21 halts the cell cycle, buying cells time to repair the damage, or if all else fails, to initiate programmed cell death. In contrast to other stress-induced genes, which dispense with the regular transcriptional entourage, p21Cip1 still requires SKIP, a transcription elongation factor that also helps with the editing of transcripts, to be expressed, found researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

2 Apr 2011

Interdisciplinary approach leads to breakthroughs in bio nanotechnology research

Focusing on interdisciplinary research is now leading to breakthroughs in bio nanotechnology research. A new method for drug development has become a reality.

2 Apr 2011

Insight into traumatic brain injury

Researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have described for the first time how the brain's memory center repairs itself following severe trauma - a process that may explain why it is harder to bounce back after multiple head injuries.

1 Apr 2011

How brain's memory center repairs itself after severe trauma

1 Apr 2011

Closer to deciphering the 'language of the brain'

The moment we open our eyes, we perceive the world with apparent ease. But the question of how neurons in the retina encode what we "see" has been a tricky one. A key obstacle to understanding how our brain functions is that its components-neurons-respond in highly nonlinear ways to complex stimuli, making stimulus-response relationships extremely difficult to discern.

1 Apr 2011

AAN honors Mayo Clinic researcher with John Dystel Prize for MS work

The American Academy of Neurology is awarding the 2011 John Dystel Prize for Multiple Sclerosis Research to Brian G. Weinshenker, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and a Fellow with the AAN.

1 Apr 2011

First MR images to show complete borders in human cerebral cortex

Understanding functional properties of the brain’s structural units is one of the main aims of brain research. Until now only fragmentary borders of brain areas could be identified in vivo since the resolution in MR images was not high enough.

31 Mar 2011

Researchers develop new virus-based nerve-tracing technique

If, as Shakespeare's Juliet declared, a rose by any other name smells as sweet - to you and to me and to anyone else who sniffs it - then one might assume that our odor-sensing nerve cells are all wired in the same way. Alas, they are not, according to a new study from scientists at The Scripps Research Institute.

31 Mar 2011

Basic Yellow 1 dye extends lifespan in healthy nematodes, slows Alzheimer's disease-like pathology in worms

Basic Yellow 1, a dye used in neuroscience laboratories around the world to detect damaged protein in Alzheimer's disease, is a wonder drug for nematode worms. In a study appearing in the March 30, online edition of Nature, the dye, also known as Thioflavin T, (ThT) extended lifespan in healthy nematode worms by more than 50 percent and slowed the disease process in worms bred to mimic aspects of Alzheimer's.

31 Mar 2011

Researchers identify drug candidate that can treat prostate cancer

The best way to prevent the lethal spread of prostate cancer is by stopping cancer cell invasion of other tissues. Available treatments such as chemotherapy are toxic and can often be risky for older men, who are also most likely to get prostate cancer.

31 Mar 2011

Tips on neurobiology of learning

Everyone would like MDs to have the best education - and to absorb what they are taught. The lead article in the April 4 issue of the journal Academic Medicine connects research on how the brain learns to how to incorporate this understanding into real world education, particularly the education of doctors.

31 Mar 2011

Breakups and rejection hurts physically: Study

The latest study has shown that social and romantic rejections and heartbreaks trigger activity in the brain that's similar to when people suffer physical pain.

29 Mar 2011

Penn neurologist develops new approach for brain activity study

By combining sophisticated mathematical techniques more commonly used by spies instead of scientists with the power and versatility of functional magnetic resonance imaging, a Penn neurologist has developed a new approach for studying the inner workings of the brain.

29 Mar 2011

Researchers find patients with Alzheimer's have lower glucose utilization in brain

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that patients with Alzheimer's disease have lower glucose utilization in the brain than those with normal cognitive function, and that those decreased levels may be detectable approximately 20 years prior to the first symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

29 Mar 2011

AstraZeneca, AmeriCares partner to deliver medicines for people with chronic conditions

AmeriCares and AstraZeneca have teamed to deliver critical medicines to help people living with chronic diseases throughout the United States. AstraZeneca has donated $5 million in cardiovascular and gastrointestinal medications to AmeriCares in support of its Domestic Medical Assistance Program.

29 Mar 2011

Study: Marijuana use may affect cognitive skills in patients with MS

Any possible pain relief that marijuana has for people with multiple sclerosis may be outweighed by the drug's apparent negative effect on thinking skills, according to research published in the March 29, 2011, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

29 Mar 2011

IMRIS sells IMRISNV to University of Utah Hospital

IMRIS Inc. today announced the sale of IMRISNV to University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah.

28 Mar 2011

Findings conflict with traditional view of how epileptic seizures begin

The first study to examine the activity of hundreds of individual human brain cells during seizures has found that seizures begin with extremely diverse neuronal activity, contrary to the classic view that they are characterized by massively synchronized activity.

28 Mar 2011

Researchers discover LRRK2 gene mutation may cause Parkinson's disease

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have discovered a way that mutations in a gene called LRRK2 may cause the most common inherited form of Parkinson's disease.

28 Mar 2011