Nervous System News and Research

Latest Nervous System News and Research

Minocycline antibiotic may prevent Japanese encephalitis

Two researchers from National Brain Research Center (NBRC) suggest that a common antibiotic called minocycline may prevent children from death due to Japanese encephalitis (JE), or commonly known as brain fever.

20 Feb 2008

Scientists shed light on long-distance signaling in developing neurons

A longstanding puzzle in neurodevelopment may have yielded up a key secret.

20 Feb 2008

Listening to music in the early stages after a stroke can improve patients' recovery

Researchers from Finland found that if stroke patients listened to music for a couple of hours a day, their verbal memory and focused attention recovered better and they had a more positive mood than patients who did not listen to anything or who listened to audio books.

20 Feb 2008

FDA approves XYZAL (levocetirizine dihydrochloride) for allergies and chronic idiopathic urticaria

UCB and sanofi-aventis have announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a New Drug Application (NDA) for XYZAL (levocetirizine dihydrochloride) 0.5 mg/mL oral solution, a prescription antihistamine indicated for the relief of symptoms associated with indoor and outdoor allergies, as well as the treatment of chronic idiopathic urticaria.

20 Feb 2008

New key finding in neurodevelopment

A longstanding puzzle in neurodevelopment may have yielded up a key secret. A team led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College says they have determined how events at the very tips of the developing neuron's long, skinny axon affect gene transcription back in the cell's distant nucleus.

20 Feb 2008

New draft Australian drink guidelines rubbished as unrealistic

The recently released Australian draft guidelines on alcohol which set a two-drinks-a-day limit on adults while warning pregnant women and young people not to drink at all, have been come in for some harsh criticism.

19 Feb 2008

Tumor-targeting viral therapy slows neuroblastoma, malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors

Researchers in a multi-institutional study led by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center slowed the growth of two particularly stubborn solid tumor cancers - neuroblastoma and peripheral nerve sheath tumors - without harming healthy tissues by inserting instructions to inhibit tissue growth into an engineered virus, according to study results published in the February 15 Cancer Research.

18 Feb 2008

Stress hormone impacts memory, learning in diabetic rodents

Diabetes is known to impair the cognitive health of people, but now scientists have identified one potential mechanism underlying these learning and memory problems.

18 Feb 2008

Researchers find protein targets for potential treatment of multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is not a single condition, but an ebbing and flowing of stages affecting the body ' s central nervous system.

18 Feb 2008

Marijuana causes emotional and memory problems in multiple sclerosis patients

People with multiple sclerosis (MS) who smoke marijuana are more likely to have emotional and memory problems, according to research published February 13, 2008, in the online edition of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

18 Feb 2008

Potential new strategy for treating lupus

Immune cells that would normally die in healthy people accumulate in bodies of patients who have lupus and contribute to the disease, according to new Saint Louis University research published in the Feb. 15 issue of Immunity.

17 Feb 2008

Heart-healthy diet may also be good for the prostate

Men who eat a diet low in fat and red meat but high in vegetables and lean protein and who drink alcohol in moderation may not just be doing their hearts a favor.

14 Feb 2008

One red wine good, two bad!, says study

One drink of either red wine or alcohol slightly benefits the heart and blood vessels, but the positive effects on specific biological markers disappear with two drinks, say researchers at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre of the Toronto General Hospital.

13 Feb 2008

Lab on a chip mimics chemical complexities of the brain

Johns Hopkins researchers from the Whiting School of Engineering and the School of Medicine have devised a micro-scale tool - a lab on a chip - designed to mimic the chemical complexities of the brain.

13 Feb 2008

What gives us fingertip dexterity?

Quickly moving your fingertips to tap or press a surface is essential for everyday life to, say, pick up small objects, use a BlackBerry or an iPhone.

8 Feb 2008

VEGF-B helps nerve cells cheat death without unwanted side effects

The prototypical member of the VEGF family of proteins, VEGF, has recently been shown to protect cells in the nervous system from death and degeneration.

8 Feb 2008

New devices to boost nematode research on neurons and drugs

A pair of new thin, transparent devices, constructed with soft lithography, should boost research in which nematodes are studied to explore brain-behavior connections and to screen new pharmaceuticals for potential treatment of parasitic infections in humans, report 10 scientists at three institutions.

7 Feb 2008

Release of blood stem cells from bone marrow is regulated by brain through human biological clock

These new findings, published online on the website of the journal Nature, point out that the harvest of stem cells for transplantation may be improved by timing it at the peak of their release.

7 Feb 2008

For safety, NHLBI changes intensive blood sugar treatment strategy in trial of diabetes and cardiovascular disease

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health has stopped one treatment within a large, ongoing North American clinical trial of diabetes and cardiovascular disease 18 months early due to safety concerns after review of available data, although the study will continue.

6 Feb 2008

People with manic depression have a distinct chemical signature in their brains

People with manic depression have a distinct chemical signature in their brains, according to a new study. The research, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, may also indicate how the mood stabilisers used to treat the disorder counteract the changes in the brain that it appears to cause.

5 Feb 2008