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New streamlined triage system for "brain attack"

Taking a page out of the playbook developed by cardiologists nearly two decades ago to promote the warning signs and swift treatment for heart attacks, a multidisciplinary team of stroke experts at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) have created a new streamlined triage system at Strong Memorial Hospital's Emergency Department (ED) to provide rapid evaluation and specialized treatments to "brain attack," or stroke, patients.

1 Apr 2009

West Nile virus studies show how star-shaped brain cells cope with infection

A new study published as the cover article for the April 2009 issue of The FASEB Journal promises to give physicians new ways to reduce deadly responses to viral infections of the brain and spinal cord.

1 Apr 2009

New insights into how brain responds to viral infection

Scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health have discovered that astrocytes, supportive cells in the brain that are not derived from an immune cell lineage, respond to a molecule that mimics a viral infection using cellular machinery similar to that used by classical immune cells in the blood.

1 Apr 2009

Experimental brain tools developed by Hebrew University scientists

An interdisciplinary team of scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed a new analytical tool to answer the question of how our brain cells record outside stimuli and react to them.

1 Apr 2009

Moonlighting immune molecules found in the brain

Molecules assumed to be in the exclusive employ of the immune system have been caught moonlighting in the brain - with a job description apparently quite distinct from their role in immunity.

30 Mar 2009

New brain mapping capabilities come to desktops of scientists worldwide

Mapping the billions of connections in the brain is a grand challenge in neuroscience.

30 Mar 2009

Experimental Parkinson's therapy may have robust weight-loss effect

A growth factor used in clinical experiments to rescue dying brain cells in Parkinson patients may cause unwanted weight loss if delivered to specific areas of the brain, according to University of Florida researchers in the March online edition of Molecular Therapy.

24 Mar 2009

Tiny genetic change keeps nicotine from binding to muscle cells

A tiny genetic mutation is the key to understanding why nicotine--which binds to brain receptors with such addictive potency--is virtually powerless in muscle cells that are studded with the same type of receptor.

23 Mar 2009

Astrocytes help separate man from mouse

A type of brain cell that was long overlooked by researchers embodies one of very few ways in which the human brain differs fundamentally from that of a mouse or rat, according to researchers who published their findings as the cover story in the March 11 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

23 Mar 2009

Gulf War veterans display abnormal brain response to specific chemicals

A new study by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers is the first to pinpoint damage inside the brains of veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome - a finding that links the illness to chemical exposures and may lead to diagnostic tests and treatments.

22 Mar 2009

Researchers step toward a medicine that could actually stop the progress of Alzheimer's

VIB scientists connected to the K.U.Leuven have identified a molecule that can form the basis for a new therapy for Alzheimer's disease.

20 Mar 2009

Shrinking in hippocampus area of brain precedes Alzheimer's disease

People who have lost brain cells in the hippocampus area of the brain are more likely to develop dementia, according to a study published in the March 17, 2009, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

16 Mar 2009

Cause of severe pediatric epilepsy disorder discovered

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that convulsive seizures in a form of severe epilepsy are generated, not on the brain's surface as expected, but from within the memory-forming hippocampus.

16 Mar 2009

Potential pathway for drug intervention

A newly identified molecular pathway that directs stem cells to produce glial cells yields insights into the neurobiology of Down's syndrome and a number of central nervous system disorders characterized by too many glial cells, according to a recent study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

15 Mar 2009

Imbalance of iron homeostasis involved in prion disease-associated neuronal demise

Imbalance of iron homeostasis is a common feature of prion disease-affected human, mouse, and hamster brains, according to a new study by Dr. Neena Singh and colleagues at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, alongside collaborators from Creighton University.

15 Mar 2009