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Harnessing the brain’s capacity to adapt and regenerate

Understanding the brain’s capacity to adjust to physical and mental trauma and injury – and how to exploit this therapeutically to help patients – is the focus of a major international symposium at the University of New South Wales next month (8 Sept).

22 Aug 2011

Calcium scores and heart disease risk, experts debate

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22 Aug 2011

Insights into how ruminations are represented in the brains of depressed persons

All of us, at times, ruminate or brood on a problem in order to make the best possible decision in a complex situation. But sometimes, rumination becomes unproductive or even detrimental to making good life choices. Such is the case in depression, where non-productive ruminations are a common and distressing symptom of the disorder.

22 Aug 2011

Cellular pathology of Lou Gehrig’s disease discovered

Researchers claim to have found a common cause behind the mysterious and deadly affliction of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The discovery could pave the way to new treatments for the devastating disorder whose victims include top physicist Professor Stephen Hawking.

22 Aug 2011

Brain's reaction to sadness can predict risk of future depression

Depression is increasingly recognized as an illness that strikes repeatedly over the lifespan, creating cycles of relapse and recovery. This sobering knowledge has prompted researchers to search for markers of relapse risk in people who have recovered from depression.

22 Aug 2011

Tiny molecule could bind to B cell EB12 receptor and prevent cancer

Infection with Epstein Barr means that the B cells, which are the primary memory cells of the immune system, are hi-jacked. When the virus has penetrated, researchers observe an excess of a special bio-antenna, a receptor known as EB12, suddenly sprouting from the surface of the B cells. But why they do so remains a mystery.

22 Aug 2011

New technique can detach sugars from carrier molecule, reattach them to drugs

The surface of cells and many biologically active molecules are studded with sugar structures that are not used to store energy, but rather are involved in communication, immunity and inflammation.

22 Aug 2011

Narcolepsy more prevalent in China during April

New research shows that the occurrence of narcolepsy in China is highly correlated to a seasonal pattern, with onset most frequent in April.

22 Aug 2011

Winter airway infections appear to trigger narcolepsy: Study

The onset of narcolepsy appears to follow seasonal patterns of H1N1 and other upper airway infections, according to a new study of patients in China that was led by Stanford University School of Medicine narcolepsy expert Emmanuel Mignot, MD.

22 Aug 2011

First computerized genome-scale model of cancer cell metabolism

Scientists are constantly on the hunt for treatments that can selectively target cancer cells, leaving other cells in our bodies unharmed.

22 Aug 2011

Scientists discover mechanism that helps explain why stress causes DNA damage

For years, researchers have published papers that associate chronic stress with chromosomal damage. Now researchers at Duke University Medical Center have discovered a mechanism that helps to explain the stress response in terms of DNA damage.

22 Aug 2011

Scientists identify common cause of all forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

The underlying disease process of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS and Lou Gehrig's disease), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that paralyzes its victims, has long eluded scientists and prevented development of effective therapies. Scientists weren't even sure all its forms actually converged into a common disease process.

22 Aug 2011

Quanterix's ELISA precisely measures low abundance cytokines in Crohn's disease

Quanterix Corporation, a company enabling a new generation of molecular diagnostic tests based on its revolutionary Single Molecule Array technology, today announced results of a pilot study to measure biomarkers of inflammation from patients with Crohn's disease.

20 Aug 2011

High cigarette price, economic factors appear to reduce smoking rates among African-American youth

A new report in the American Journal of Public Health suggests that increasing cigarette prices combined with other social and economic factors appear to be behind the steep decline in smoking rates among African-American youth that occurred between 1970s and the mid-1990s.

20 Aug 2011

Researchers to generate new knowledge about brain's complex communication system

Researchers at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen have collaborated with the company NeuroSearch to generate new knowledge about an important part of the brain's complex communication system.

20 Aug 2011

New findings on cancer stem cells

In cancer, tumors aren't uniform: they are more like complex societies, each with a unique balance of cancer cell types playing different roles. Understanding this "social structure" of tumors is critical for treatment decisions in the clinic because different cell types may be sensitive to different drugs. A common theory is that tumors are a hierarchical society, in which all cancer cells descend from special self-renewing cancer stem cells.

20 Aug 2011

Waist circumference does not effectively predict children with increased risk of diabetes

Waist circumference, a measure of belly fat, is not a better predictor than body mass index for identifying children with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study by University of Michigan researchers.

20 Aug 2011

NIA awards UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging ADC to continue Alzheimer's research

University of Kentucky officials announced this week that the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging (SBCoA) Alzheimer's Disease Center (ADC) is receiving more than $7 million from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to continue and further research and clinical initiatives geared toward treating Alzheimer's disease.

20 Aug 2011

Managed care plans can effectively reduce Medicare market costs

Medicare managed health care plans can be effective in reducing costs and encouraging appropriate care, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International, Arizona State University, the University of California, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

20 Aug 2011

New research articles focus on sport, physical activity participation across the lifespan

In an age of spiraling inactivity levels and escalating obesity rates across the planet, a new collection of research articles focused on participation in sport and physical activity across the lifespan has just been released.

20 Aug 2011