and treatment of neurological diseases ranging from autism to Alzheimer disease to multiple sclerosis. nstead of asking,
hy do multiple sclerosis patients have the immune attacks? now we can approach this mechanistically. Because the brain is like every other tissue connected to the peripheral immune system through meningeal lymphatic vessels,
said Jonathan Kipnis, Phd, professor in the UVA Department of Neuroscience and director of UVA Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG).
Alzheimer, Autism, MS and Beyond The unexpected presence of the lymphatic vessels raises a tremendous number of questions that now need answers, both about the workings of the brain and the diseases that plague it.
For example, take Alzheimer disease. n Alzheimer, there are accumulations of big protein chunks in the brain,
And there an enormous array of other neurological diseases, from autism to multiple sclerosis, that must be reconsidered in light of the presence of something science insisted did not exist u
The achievement brings scientists a step closer to growing the most complex component of the eyehe eye neural tissuend could enable doctors to repair damaged eyes with lab-grown retinal tissue.
and his colleagues could one day be used to culture tissue that can be transplanted into a human retina damaged by conditions such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa,
which lead to blindness. he protocol developed here allows us to generate retinal tissue that closely resembles the biological retina with high efficiency and stability,
#Disruption of Delicate Chemical Balance Implicated as a Cause of Schizophrenia Scientists produce strongest evidence yet of schizophrenia causes.
what causes schizophrenia a condition that affects around 1%of the global population. Published today in the journal Neuron,
the team found that disease-linked mutations disrupt specific sets of genes contributing to excitatory and inhibitory signalling, the balance
published last year in the journal Nature. ee finally starting to understand what goes wrong in schizophrenia,
says lead author Dr Andrew Pocklington from Cardiff University MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics. ur study marks a significant step towards understanding the biology underpinning schizophrenia,
which is an incredibly complex condition and has up until very recently kept scientists largely mystified as to its origins. e now have
what we hope is a pretty sizeable piece of the jigsaw puzzle that will help us develop a coherent model of the disease,
while helping us to rule out some of the alternatives. reliable model of disease is needed urgently to direct future efforts in
Professor Hugh Perry, who chairs the Medical Research Council Neuroscience and Mental health Board said: his work builds on our understanding of the genetic causes of schizophrenia unravelling how a combination of genetic faults can disrupt the chemical balance of the brain. cientists in the UK,
as part of an international consortium, are uncovering the genetic causes of a range of mental health issues, such as schizophrenia. n the future,
this work could lead to new ways of predicting an individual risk of developing schizophrenia
and form the basis of new targeted treatments that are based on an individual genetic makeup.
Researchers studying psychiatric disorders have suspected previously that disruption of this balance contributes to schizophrenia. The first evidence that schizophrenia mutations interfere with excitatory signalling was uncovered in 2011 by the same team,
based at Cardiff University MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics. This paper not only confirms their previous findings,
but also provides the first strong genetic evidence that disruption of inhibitory signalling contributes to the disorder.
To reach their conclusions scientists compared the genetic data of 11,355 patients with schizophrenia against a control group of 16,416 people without the condition.
Comparing the CNVS found in people with schizophrenia to those found in unaffected people the team was able to show that the mutations in individuals with the disorder tended to disrupt genes involved in specific aspects of brain function.
The disease-causing effects of CNVS are suspected also to be involved in other neurodevelopmental disorders such as intellectual disability, Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD.
Around 635,000 people in the UK will at some stage in their lives be affected by schizophrenia.
The estimated cost of schizophrenia and psychosis to society is around £11. 8 billion a year.
The symptoms of schizophrenia can be extremely disruptive, and have a large impact on a person ability to carry out everyday tasks,
#Deficiency of Specific Protein in Brain Blood vessels Increases Risk for Alzheimer Disease New study finds that PICALM protein regulates removal of toxic plaques from brain.
Sientists at the Keck School of medicine of USC have discovered that a protein known as PICALM regulates removal of toxic plaques from the brain,
which could be a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of Alzheimer disease. In a study that appeared in a recent edition of Nature Neuroscience,
which is known a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer disease. Alzheimer is the most common type of dementia
characterized by the loss of memory and other mental abilities linked to an accumulation of amyloid-beta and other toxic compounds in the brain.
The study found that a deficiency in PICALM in cerebral blood vessels and in PICALM-related gene variants associated with increased risk for Alzheimer,
disable amyloid-beta from being cleared out of the brain across a region known as the blood-brain barrier. here have been many new genes discovered to be associated with Alzheimer disease,
director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute and holder of the Mary Hayley and Selim Zilkha chair for Alzheimer Disease research at the Keck School of medicine. ur new study shows that a deficiency in PICALM in blood vessels
and its variants associated with increased risk for the disease inactivate amyloid-beta clearance from the brain,
and brings to light novel potential therapeutic targets for increasing amyloid-beta clearance in Alzheimer disease.
Autopsies from Alzheimer patients and recent research in experimental models have shown the importance of brain blood vessels in the disease initiation and progression.
Zlokovic and his research team have studied the cellular and molecular mechanisms of brain blood vessels that maintain normal cognition with hopes of developing new treatments for Alzheimer and other neurodegenerative diseases.
By performing a neuropathological study in humans with Alzheimer and using transgenic animals to model the disease,
the group found that low levels of PICALM in brain endothelial cells lead to amyloid-beta accumulation in the brain.
Genetic variants associated with the PICALM gene have been shown to increase the risk of Alzheimer disease.
The team also will work on developing therapeutic strategies, including gene therapy, and screening for new drugs to overcome PICALM deficiency e
and Age Related Neurodegeneration The process that allows our brains to learn and generate new memories also leads to degeneration as we age, according to a new study by researchers at MIT.
could ultimately help researchers develop new approaches to preventing cognitive decline in disorders such as Alzheimer disease.
In previous research into Alzheimer disease in mice, the researchers found that even in the presymptomatic phase of the disorder,
neurons in the hippocampal region of the brain contain a large number of DNA lesions, known as double strand breaks.
They applied a toxic agent to the neurons known to induce double strand breaks and then harvested the RNA from the cells for sequencing.
even though conventional wisdom dictates that DNA lesions are very bad as this amagecan be mutagenic
and sometimes lead to cancer it turns out that these breaks are part of the physiological function of the cell,
a professor of genetics and neurology at Harvard Medical school who was involved not in the research. he work elegantly links DNA strand break formation by the enzyme topoisomerase IIß to the temporal control of transcription,
he says. anticipate that this advance will have broad implications ranging from the basic biology of transcription to pathological mechanisms involved in diseases such as Alzheimer disease
and schizophrenia resist complete reprogramming. A team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge has described for the first time in humans how the epigenome the suite of molecules attached to our DNA that switch our genes on
and schizophrenia resist complete reprogramming. Although our genetic information the ode of lifeis written in our DNA,
Professor Azim Surani from the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge, explains:
However, data analysis of human diseases suggests that such genes are associated with conditions such as schizophrenia, metabolic disorders and obesity.
and epigenetic reprogramming that subsequently impacts human development and disease. Unique Gene Regulatory Network Resets the Human Germline Epigenome for Developmentby Walfred W c. Tang
Aix-Marseille and the German Mouse Clinic teamed up to investigate the initiation process of dendritic spines.
In many central nervous system diseases, the dendritic spine density is altered. nderstanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the initiation process of dendritic spines enables us to manipulate their initiation rate and density.
this knowledge can be helpful in the development of therapeutic interventions for neurological diseases underlined by altered dendritic spine density, such as autism spectrum disorder, Schizophrenia or Alzheimer's disease.
#Injectable Device Delivers a Nano-View of the Brain Promise against disease in electronic scaffolds.
and treat everything from neurodegenerative disorders to paralysis. Sounds unlikely, until you visit Charles Lieber lab. Led by Lieber, the Mark Hyman Jr.
ould it be possible to deliver the mesh electronics by syringe needle injection??Though not the first attempt at implanting electronics into the brain deep brain stimulation has been used to treat a variety of disorders for decades the nanofabricated scaffolds operate on a completely different scale. xisting techniques are crude relative to the way the brain is wired,
and administered like any other injection. The input-output of the mesh can then be connected to standard measurement electronics
or record neural activity. hese type of things have never been done before, from both a fundamental neuroscience and medical perspective,
also known as Lou Gehrig disease, has been discovered by scientists at the CHUM Research Centre and the University of Montreal.
The finding paves the way to a whole new approach for finding a drug that can cure
or at least slow the progression of such neurodegenerative diseases as ALS, Alzheimer, Parkinson and Huntington diseases.
and trigger the disease, said Alex Parker, CRCHUM researcher and associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Montreal.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a neuromuscular disease that attacks neurons and the spinal cord. Those affected gradually become paralyzed and typically die less than five years after the onset of symptoms.
the person develops the disease. Scientists introduced a mutated human gene (TDP-43 or FUS) into C. elegans,
and suffered far less paralysis, she added. This study highlights a never previously suspected mechanism:
that system triggers a misguided attack against the worm own neurons. he worm thinks it has a viral or bacterial infection and launches an immune response.
But the reaction is toxic and destroys the animal motor neurons, Alex Parker explained. Is the same scenario at work with people?
This makes the TIR-1 protein (or SARM1 in humans) an excellent therapeutic target for development of a medication.
because we caused the disease. This allows us to administer treatment very early in the worm life.
But ALS is a disease of aging, which usually appears in humans around the age of 55.
But we have demonstrated clearly that blocking this key protein curbs the disease progress in this worm
10.1038/ncomms8319abstractneurodegeneration in C. elegans models of ALS requires TIR-1/Sarm1 immune pathway activation in neuronsamyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease thought to employ cell nonautonomous
mechanisms where neuronal injury engages immune responses to influence disease progression. Here we show that the expression of mutant proteins causative for ALS in Caenorhabditis elegans motor neurons induces an innate immune response via TIR-1/Sarm1.
recruiting a pathogen resistance response that is ultimately harmful and drives progressive neurodegeneration. eurodegeneration in C. elegans models of ALS requires TIR-1/Sarm1 immune pathway activation in neuronsby Julie Vérièpe, Lucresse Fossouo and J Alex
Parker in Nature Communications. Published online June 10 2015 doi: 10.1038/ncomms831 o
#Imaging Technique Provides Color Coded Map Showing Cancerous Brain areas New imaging technique could make brain tumor removal safer and more effective,
study suggests. Brain surgery is famously difficult for good reason: When removing a tumor, for example, neurosurgeons walk a tightrope as they try to take out as much of the cancer as possible
while keeping crucial brain tissue intact and visually distinguishing the two is often impossible. Now Johns Hopkins researchers report they have developed an imaging technology that could provide surgeons with a color-coded map of a patient brain showing
which areas are and are not cancer. A summary of the research appears June 17 in Science Translational Medicine. s a neurosurgeon,
I in agony when I taking out a tumor. If I take out too little the cancer could come back;
too much, and the patient can be disabled permanently, says Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M d.,a professor of neurosurgery,
neuroscience and oncology at the Johns hopkins university School of medicine and the clinical leader of the research team. e think optical coherence tomography has strong potential for helping surgeons know exactly where to cut.
First developed in the early 1990s for imaging the retina, optical coherence tomography (OCT) operates on the same echolocation principle used by bats and ultrasound scanners,
but it uses light rather than sound waves, yielding a higher-resolution image than does ultrasound.
One unique feature of OCT is that unlike X-ray, CT SCANS or PET scans, it delivers no ionizing radiation to patients.
For the past decade, research groups around the globe, including a group at Johns Hopkins led by Xingde Li, Ph d,
. a professor of biomedical engineering, has been working to further develop and apply the technology to other organs beyond the relatively transparent eye.
thought OCT might provide a solution to the problem of separating brain cancers from other tissue during surgery.
Kut first built on the idea that cancers tend to be relatively dense, which affects how they scatter
Once they had found the characteristic OCT ignatureof brain cancer, the team devised a computer algorithm to process OCT data and,
nearly instantaneously, generate a color-coded map with cancer in red and healthy tissue in green. e envision that the OCT would be aimed at the area being operated on,
and the surgeon could look at a screen to get a continuously updated picture of where the cancer is
the team has tested the system on fresh human brain tissue removed during surgeries and in surgeries to remove brain tumors from mice.
The researchers hope to begin clinical trials in patients this summer. If those trials are successful
it will be a big step up from imaging technologies now available during surgeries, says Quinones-Hinojosa. ltrasound has a much lower resolution than OCT,
The system can potentially be adapted to detect cancers in other parts of the body, Kut says.
She is working on combining OCT with a different imaging technique that would detect blood vessels to help surgeons avoid cutting them s
In practice, carers and therapists take advantage of this phenomenon to stimulate their patients with music. It is often possible for music to reactivate memories, emotions and impressions.
In the process, they considered three important features of the disease: loss of neurons, reduced metabolism and deposition of amyloid protein in the affected brain areas.
but does not lead to the deficits otherwise associated with advanced stages of the disease.
It can therefore remain largely intact even in advanced stages of the disease. ur findings also lend support to a theory previously proposed in connection with other studies that found stronger network connections between the anterior gyrus cinguli and other nodes
This suggests that this area of the brain also provides specific compensatory functions as the disease progresses,
a sound understanding of the complex relationships could lead to a real therapeutic benefit of music in patient care,
For someone suffering from paralysis or limited mobility, visiting with other people is extremely difficult.
was able to interact with whoever the robot crossed paths with. ach of the 9 subjects with disabilities managed to remotely control the robot with ease after less than 10 days of training,
The TOBI project, funded by the European commission, aims at developing brain-machine interfaces for people with disabilities to control telepresence robots or a wheelchair using only mental commands.
Will robots soon become a fact of daily life for people suffering from a disability?
10.1016/j. bios. 2015.04. 058abstractan organic electronic biomimetic neuron enables auto-regulated neuromodulationcurrent therapies for neurological disorders are based on traditional medication and electric stimulation.
The results demonstrate the potential of the organic electronic biomimetic neuron in therapies involving long-range neuronal signalling by mimicking the function of projection neurons.
and active prosthetics. se of Brain MRI Atlases to Determine Boundaries Of age-Related Pathology: The Importance of Statistical Methodby David Alexander Dickie, Dominic E. Job, David Rodriguez Gonzalez, Susan D. Shenkin,
how we develop the next generation of medications for chronic painhich is by far the most prevalent human health conditionnd the way we execute basic biomedical research using mice. esearch has demonstrated that men
The research was conducted by teams from Mcgill University, The Hospital for Sick Children (Sickkids), and Duke university,
and looked at the longstanding theory that pain is transmitted from the site of injury or inflammation through the nervous system using an immune system cell called microglia.
said Michael Salter, M d.,Ph d.,Head and Senior Scientist, Neuroscience & Mental health at Sickkids and Professor at The University of Toronto,
The discovery comes as there is increased attention to the inclusion of female animals and cells in preclinical research.
and cell lines in preclinical research . or the past 15 years scientists have thought that microglia controlled the volume knob on pain,
described in a study led by researchers in the Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics at the Icahn School of medicine at Mount sinai,
Assistant professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics at the Icahn School of medicine at Mount sinai. y identifying this new mechanism of epigenetic regulation,
this work provides a novel conceptual framework for further studies aimed at identifying the molecular underpinnings of neurodevelopmental disease and psychiatric illness. pecifically,
and reacts to changes in the environment can help us to find new ways to treat neurodegenerative diseases and mental illness. ource:
#Detecting Eye diseases With Help of a Smartphone Researchers at the Medical and Surgical Center for Retina developed software that detects eye diseases such as diabetic macular edema using a smartphone.
The system is aimed at general physicians who could detect the condition and refer the patient to a specialist.
The software was developed in collaboration with biomedical engineers from the ITESM and uses the camera of the phone to detect any abnormality in the thickness of the retina. he idea is to detect
and prevent diseases in general practice. We are not replacing the specialist we want to know which patients have a disease
and make an early detection, says Dr. Juan carlos Altamirano Vallejo, medical director of the Medical and Surgical Center for Retina.
He adds that the technology is designed for general physicians, ho support the health system in Mexico and,
even without in depth knowledge of ophthalmology, can, with this tool, detect certain abnormalities and send the patient to the specialist. sing the software will reduce costs
and streamline the Mexican health system. With just having the app on the cell phone
and focusing the camera on the eye, immediate results will be obtained. e start off the fact that it is much cheaper to prevent than to cure blindness. he app also has utility in rural communities,
where expertise areas such as ophthalmology have not arrive yet because equipment to detect these diseases are expensive and so far only the visiting specialist can do this kind of diagnosis. t will help those that
when they go to the eye doctor are already blind, we needed to go a step back,
to know who is at risk and needs to go to a specialist. Not wait for a doctor
says Altamirano Vallejo. Software development has been satisfactory and is expected to soon be marketed and incorporated the basic health system.
and Surgical Center for Retina is a small company with just ten employees dedicated to ophthalmology and retina special medical care.
It it also dedicated to biomedical and pharmaceutical research, to develop diagnostics and equipment, applicable to society. e want to give back to our community everything it gives to us,
#Novel Disease Gene Linked to Neurodegenerative Disorders Identified Researchers at the University of Miami (UM) have discovered
and characterized a previously unknown disease gene linked to the degeneration of optic and peripheral nerve fibers.
cause an optic atrophy spectrum disorderis published in the journal Nature Genetics. Patients with mutations in this gene present symptoms similar to optic atrophy and Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 2 (CMT2), including vision loss and weakening of the lower leg and foot
muscles beginning in the first decade of life. The novel variants occur in a gene called SLC25A46 that functions in mitochondria
Ph d. student in Neuroscience at the UM Miller School of medicine and first author of the study. lthough we study rare diseases such as CMT2 and optic atrophy,
the implications encompass all forms of neurodegeneration including Lou Gehrig and Parkinson Diseases. Mitochondria constantly undergo fusion
Given the similarities between the diseases caused by mutations in OPA1, MFN2 and SLC25A46, these genes could be involved in common pathological mechanisms of neurodegeneration,
the study says. his finding builds on our discovery of MFN2 as a major disease gene in this area over 10 years ago,
said Dr. Stephan Züchner, professor and chair of the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human genetics, at UM Miller School of medicine,
#Herpes used in cancer treatment Researchers used a modified herpes virus to successfully treat patients with aggressive skin cancer
and believe the method could pave the way for a new generation of cancer treatments.
and uses biotechnology to convert viruses into therapeutic agents, effectively allowing them to go on seek
said Dr Kevin Harrington, professor of biological cancer therapies at the Institute of Cancer Research London (ICR),
The herpes-based drug is called T-VEC and has already been sent to the US Food
The study was is published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and included 436 patients all of whom had aggressive malignant melanoma.
durable benefit for people with melanoma, said Dr Harrington. Professor Paul Workman, Chief executive of the ICR, said in a statement,
and kill human cells that can make them such promising cancer treatments. Australian has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world and according to the Cancer Council,
two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the time they are 70. While the trials have provided great optimism in regards to future cancer treatments,
the successful results have yet to be replicated. The Australian Cancer Research Foundation refrained from commenting on the story
and are waiting for more clinical trials to be done in the field of virotherapy and cancer.
However Dr Hayley Frend, science information manager at Cancer Research UK said she was excited by the results. sing a virus to both kill cancer cells
and nudge the immune system into attacking them is exciting, she said. While previous testing has shown benefits of such treatments,
Program director for the US NAVY Captain Jeff Dodge likened the upgrade from the MQ-8b based on a smaller airframe to the model aircraft to a brain transplant. e are taking the computer
#Brain implant allows paralysed man to sip a beer at his own pace A brain implant that can decode what someone wants to do has allowed a man paralysed from the neck down to control a robotic arm with unprecedented fluidity
People with similar injuries have controlled previously prosthetic limbs using implants placed in their motor cortex an area of the brain responsible for the mechanics of movement.
Richard Andersen at the California Institute of technology in Pasadena and his colleagues hoped they could achieve a more fluid movement by placing an implant in the posterior parietal cortex a part of the brain involved in planning motor movements."
Neuron control Andersen's team placed two implants measuring 4 millimetres squared into Sorto's posterior parietal cortex.
paper, scissors Next, the team sent information from the implant to a computer, which translated it into instructions to move a separate robotic arm.
but this is not possible for people with a spinal injury because the messages from the nerves cannot reach the brain.
Miguel Nicolelis at Duke university Medical centre in Durham, North carolina, showed that stimulating the somatosensory cortex an area that processes feelings of touch let monkeys feel the texture of virtual objects without physically touching anythingmovie Camera.
people undergoing brain surgery have had their somatosensory cortex stimulated and reported feeling things such as"a wind rushing over my hand
At the conference, Andersen announced that the team has placed an implant in their first volunteer
and proof of principle,"says Harald Ott of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who grew the limb."
"says Daniel Weiss at the University of Vermont College of Medicine in Burlington, who works on lung regeneration."
Hand transplants have also been successful, but the recipient needs lifelong immunosuppressive drugs to prevent their body rejecting the hand.
Results of hand transplants show that this happens through the recipient's nerve tissue penetrating into the hand
while muscle cells could come from biopsies from large muscles, such as in the thigh.""If you took about 5 grams, the size of a finger,
"At present, if you lose an arm, a leg or soft tissue as part of cancer treatment or burns,
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011