Neurons News and Research

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Gene therapy may help correct molecular flaws that cause brain disease

Neuroscientists have forged an unlikely molecular union as part of their fight against diseases of the brain and nervous system.

9 Jan 2010

UCF research opens a new exploratory path for Alzheimer's disease

Despite a massive global research effort, many basics of Alzheimer's disease onset remain elusive. This has hampered development of treatments effective during the earliest stages of the disease, when prevention is most likely.

9 Jan 2010

New findings may provide a standardized way to diagnose autism in children

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) process sound and language a fraction of a second slower than children without ASDs, and measuring magnetic signals that mark this delay may become a standardized way to diagnose autism.

8 Jan 2010

Center for Attention Deficit and Learning Disorders adds HEG to its list of treatment options

The Center for Attention Deficit and Learning Disorders announces today that it has added Hemoencephalography (HEG) to its list of treatment options for patients with ADD/ADHD, learning disabilities, mood disorders and other conditions.

8 Jan 2010

Gene modification of human embryonic stem cells may yield potential treatments for genetic diseases

Biologists have developed an efficient way to genetically modify human embryonic stem cells. Their approach, which uses bacterial artificial chromosomes to swap in defective copies of genes, will make possible the rapid development of stem cell lines that can both serve as models for human genetic diseases and as testbeds on which to screen potential treatments, they say.

8 Jan 2010

Researchers seek to defeat Alzheimer's disease by modifying mice's immune system

Using laboratory mice that had been bred to have brain changes similar to Alzheimer's disease, scientists were able to reduce two characteristic features of the disease by modifying the mice's immune systems with a special peptide (MOG45D) related to the myelin sheath that insulates nerve cells and nerve fibers. As a result, anti-inflammatory cells were recruited from the blood into the brain, dampening the local inflammatory response.

7 Jan 2010

UV LED therapy can be used for treating focal epilepsy in humans

Researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School discovered that light from an ultraviolet diode (UV LED) reduced "seizure-like" activity in a rat epilepsy model. During the study, UV light released gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) from the "caged" compound carbonyl amino butanoic acid (BC204).

7 Jan 2010

New tools show potential for treating brain disorders

Neuroscientists at MIT have developed a powerful new class of tools to reversibly shut down brain activity using different colors of light.

7 Jan 2010

Findings open up significant possibilities for developing micro-screening devices for drug discovery

A Nobel-winning process for testing new drugs to treat diseases such as Huntington's, Parkinson's, and muscular dystrophy is getting an electrical charge.

6 Jan 2010

Perturbing DISC1 gene could help researchers treat mental illness, says study

Scientists have long eyed mutations in a gene known as DISC1 as a possible contributor to schizophrenia and mood disorders, including depression and bipolar disorder. Now, new research led by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests that perturbing this gene during prenatal periods, postnatal periods or both may have different effects in mice, leading to separate types of brain alterations and behaviors with resemblance to schizophrenia or mood disorders.

6 Jan 2010

Citicoline supplements may reduce cravings and increase satiety

The obesity crisis in the United States has now grown to epidemic proportion. And as the list of consequential health conditions and diseases continues to expand as well, there are major movements toward helping Americans lose weight.

5 Jan 2010

Talampanel slows progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

A drug already used to treat symptoms of epilepsy has potential to slow the muscle weakening that comes with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), scientists report after completing a Phase II clinical trial-an early, small-scale test to show if the drug works and continues to be safe.

5 Jan 2010

Study explains how semaphorin gene regulates synapse formation

By combining a research technique that dates back 136 years with modern molecular genetics, a Johns Hopkins neuroscientist has been able to see how a mammal's brain shrewdly revisits and reuses the same molecular cues to control the complex design of its circuits.

29 Dec 2009

Chloride acts as a major amplifier for signal transduction in mouse sensory neurons

The vomeronasal organ (VNO) is an odor detection system that mediates many pheromone-sensitive behaviors. Vomeronasal sensory neurons (VSNs), located in the VNO, are the initial site of interaction with odors and pheromones.

29 Dec 2009

First animal model for studying schizophrenia

Scientists have created what appears to be a schizophrenic mouse by reducing the inhibition of brain cells involved in complex reasoning and decisions about appropriate social behavior.

29 Dec 2009

Defects in protein-secretion machinery linked to neural tube closure

Spinal cord disorders like spina bifida arise during early development when future spinal cord cells growing in a flat layer fail to roll up into a tube. In the Dec. 6 issue of Nature Cell Biology, researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine team with colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley to report a never-before known link between protein transport and mouse spinal cord development, a discovery that opens new doors for research on all spinal defects.

29 Dec 2009

New evidence suggests amyloid beta plays a critical role in synaptic failure

The early stages of Alzheimer's disease are thought to occur at the synapse, since synapse loss is associated with memory dysfunction. Evidence suggests that amyloid beta (Aβ) plays an important role in early synaptic failure, but little has been understood about Aβ's effect on the plasticity of dendritic spines.

29 Dec 2009

Small molecules reverse protein trafficking and mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson's disease models

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by tremors, muscle rigidity, and slowed movements. There is currently no cure for the disease, and current Parkinson's therapies only address disease symptoms, not the disease's cellular cause.

29 Dec 2009

Brain circuit that holds the memory discovered

Ben W. Strowbridge, PhD, associate professor of neuroscience and physiology/biophysics, and Phillip Larimer, PhD, a MD/PhD student in the neurosciences graduate program at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, are the first to create stimulus-specific sustained activity patterns in brain circuits maintained in vitro.

28 Dec 2009