#Key Morphine Regulator That May Reduce Risk of Pain killer Addiction Identified Once used in the 18th century as currency to reverse the trade imbalance between China and Britain,
The study was published recently online ahead of print by the journal Biological Psychiatry. The molecule in question is known as a regulator of G protein signaling (RGS PROTEIN,
#Possible Biomarker for Autism Discovered Study also points to potential new drug discovery advances. By identifying a key signaling defect within a specific membrane structure in all cells, University of California,
they have found both a possible reliable biomarker for diagnosing certain forms of autism and a potential therapeutic target.
Dr. J. Jay Gargus, Ian Parker and colleagues at the UCI Center for Autism Research & Translation examined skin biopsies of patients with three very different genetic types
of the disorder (fragile X syndrome and tuberous sclerosis 1 and 2). They discovered that a cellular calcium signaling process involving the inositol trisphosphate receptor was altered very much.
This IP3R functional defect was located in the endoplasmic reticulum which is specialized among the membrane compartments in cells called organelles,
and possibly digestive and immune problems associated with autism. e believe this finding will be another arrow in the quiver for early and accurate diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders,
said Gargus, director of the Center for Autism Research & Translation and professor of pediatrics and physiology & biophysics. qually exciting,
Study results appear online in Translational Psychiatry, a Nature publication. Autism spectrum disorder is a range of complex neurodevelopmental disorders affecting 2 percent of U s. children.
The social and economic burden of ASD is enormous currently estimated at more than $66 billion per year in the U s. alone.
which impedes diagnosis and, ultimately, drug development. There simply may be too many targets, each with too small an effect.
According to Gargus, diseases of the organelles, such as the ER, are an emerging field in medicine,
with several well-recognized neurological ailments linked to two other ones, the mitochondria and lysosomes.
The IP3R controls the release of calcium from the ER. In the brain, calcium is used to communicate information within and between neurons
To see if IP3R function is altered across the autism spectrum, clinical researchers at The Center for Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders
which is affiliated with the Center for Autism Research & Translation are currently expanding the study
and have begun to examine children with and without typical ASD for the same signaling abnormalities.
In the area of drug discovery, scientists at the Center for Autism Research & Translation continue to probe the IP3R channel,
The brains of people who have autism show signs of hyperexcitability, which is seen also in epilepsy,
a disorder increasingly found to be associated with ASD. Cells from individuals who have depressed autism exhibit levels of calcium signaling
and this might explain why these patients experience this hyperexcitability. By restoring the release of calcium from the IP3R,
#Liquid crystals Show Potential for Detecting Neurodegenerative Diseases Liquid crystals are familiar to most of us as the somewhat humdrum stuff used to make computer displays and TVS.
as detectors for the protein fibers implicated in the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer.
Amyloid fibrils are protein aggregates that are associated with the development of neurodegenerative diseases including Huntington disease, Parkinson, Alzheimer,
Scientists would like to be able to study their formation both for therapeutic reasons and so that they can test the effect of new drugs on inhibiting their growth.
#New Prosthesis Could Help Alzheimer Patients Re-Encode Memories Scientists to bypass brain damage by re-encoding memories.
Researchers at USC and Wake Forest Baptist Medical center have developed a brain prosthesis that is designed to help individuals suffering from memory loss.
That why an individual with hippocampal damage (due to Alzheimer disease, for example) can recall events from a long time ago things that were translated already into long-term memories before the brain damage occurred
#Uncovering Clues About Abnormal Embryo Development with Artificial intelligence Melanoma-like cells in tadpoles may mimic variability in human responses to cancer stimuli.
His brother, leading a similar lifestyle, succumbs to cancer at age 55. Why do some individuals develop certain diseases
or disorders while others do not? In newly reported research that could help provide answers, scientists at Tufts University,
and metastasis of melanoma-like cells in tadpoles as well as work applying artificial intelligence to help explain planarian regeneration.
and developed other melanoma-like characteristics, proliferating uncontrollably and invading the frogsinternal organs. Depending on which protein in the bioelectric pathway was tweaked, only a certain percentage of the frogs developed melanoma,
while the rest remained healthy. here randomness to this process. It doesn have the same result in all animals exposed to precisely the same agent,
which may mimic the variability in human responses to cancer-inducing stimuli, said Levin. Furthermore, the tadpoles that did develop melanoma developed it in every pigment cellach frog was either 100 percent metastatic or completely normal.
Essentially said Levin, all pigment cells in a tadpole are part of a single coin, which either flips heads (normal) or tails (cancerous).
proteins of the serotonergic signaling pathway that regulated the melanoma-like cellsbehavior. Then, the team applied artificial intelligence which mimicked evolution to generate a chemical signaling network in a irtual embryothat exhibited the same behavior that the researchers observed in their experiments with real tadpoles.
and targets for tumor prevention and better understanding many other seemingly random decisions made by cells in living organisms.
researchers could use this approach to develop a system to help doctors understand patientsindividual genetic responses to treatments as well as environmental factors that cause cancer.
and Christopher J. Martyniuk of the Center for Environmental and Human Toxicology and Department of Physiological Sciences, UF Genetics Institute, University of Florida.
in order to make a diagnosis or prescribe further tests, it is palpation. By its nature, however, the brain cannot be palpated without using a highly invasive procedure (craniotomy,
it could be used in the early diagnosis of brain tumours or Alzheimer disease. This work is published in PNAS.
Many diseases involve structural changes in tissues, which are reflected in a change in their mechanical properties, such as elasticity.
something that greatly complicates the work of neurosurgeons. On the other hand, the brain is the seat of natural vibrations created by the blood pulsating in the arteries and the circulating cerebrospinal fluid.
says Stéfan Catheline, Inserm Research director and main author of this work. lzheimer disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and hydrocephalus involve changes in the stiffness of the brain tissues.
This new technique allows their detection, and could be used to avoid brain biopsies. his method for palpating the brain could have other areas of application,
such as for analysing the development of neurodegenerative processes, the impact of a lesion from a trauma or tumour, response to treatment, etc.
Source: Stéfan Catheline INSERMIMAGE Credit: The image is credited to Inserm/Stéfan Cathelineoriginal Research: Abstract for rain palpation from physiological vibrations using MRIBY Ali Zorgani, Rémi Souchon, Au-Hoang Dinh, Jean-Yves Chapelon, Jean-Michel Ménager, Samir
and diseases are foreseen. o
#Single Drop of Blood in Brain Can Trigger Immune response Akin to Multiple sclerosis Disruption of the blood-brain barrier triggers a cascade of events that results in autoimmunity and brain damage characteristic of multiple sclerosis.
A new study from the Gladstone Institutes shows that a single drop of blood in the brain is sufficient to activate an autoimmune response akin to multiple sclerosis (MS). This is the first demonstration that introduction of blood in the healthy brain
is sufficient to cause peripheral immune cells to enter the brain, which then go on to cause brain damage.
A break in the blood-brain barrier (BBB) allows blood proteins to leak into the brain and is a key characteristic of MS,
a disabling autoimmune disease of the brain and spinal cord. However, it was unclear whether the BBB disruption caused the autoimmune response
the scientists created a new animal model of disease to determine if BBB leakage can cause autoimmunity.
and it is the primary site of injury in MS. What more, the scientists were able to pinpoint a specific protein in the blood, the blood-clotting factor fibrinogen,
as the trigger for the disease-causing process. hese findings offer a completely new way of thinking about how the immune system attacks the braint puts the blood in the driver seat of the onset
and progression of disease, says senior author Katerina Akassoglou, Phd, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and professor of neurology at the University of California,
San francisco. his opens up the possibility for new types of therapies that target blood coagulation factors, upstream of autoimmune processes.
The researchers are now attempting to block fibrinogen using biological and small-molecule approaches as potential new therapies to suppress autoimmunity directed against the brain,
and it is the primary site of injury in MS. Image is for illustrative purposes only. hese findings question a long-held paradigm that myelin-specific T cells initiate inflammation in the brain through activation of microglia
and brain macrophages, says Scott Zamvil, MD, Phd, a professor of neurology at the University of California,
but also in other brain diseases that involve inflammation or a break in the BBB, including traumatic brain injury, stroke, Alzheimer disease,
and other dementias e
#Blood test to Detect Alzheimer Disease Close to Development Early detection presents new opportunities to slow or perhaps even halt disease progression.
Researchers from the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine are nearing development of a blood test that can accurately detect the presence of Alzheimer disease,
which would give physicians an opportunity to intervene at the earliest, most treatable stage. Robert Nagele, Phd, presented his team most recent findings October 18 at OMED 15 in Orlando.
Dr. Nagele work focuses on utilizing autoantibodies as blood-based biomarkers to accurately detect the presence of myriad diseases
and pinpoint the stage to which a disease has progressed. By detecting Alzheimer disease long before symptoms emerge
Dr. Nagele hopes those with disease-related autoantibody biomarkers will be encouraged to make beneficial lifestyle changes that may help to slow development of the disease.
The blood test developed by Dr. Nagele has shown also promise in detecting other diseases, including Parkinsons, multiple sclerosis and breast cancer.
Image is for illustration purposes only. Credit: Tannim101. here are significant benefits to early disease detection
because we now know that many of the same conditions that lead to vascular disease are also significant risk factors for Alzheimer.
People found to have preclinical disease can take steps to improve their vascular health, including watching their diet,
exercising and managing any weight and blood pressure issues to help stave off or slow disease progression,
Nagele said. While the cause of Alzheimer remains elusive, it is clear that maintaining a healthy blood-brain barrier is a critical preventative measure.
Diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure stroke and being overweight jeopardize vascular health. As blood vessels in the brain weaken
or become brittle with age, they begin to leak, which allows plasma components including brain-reactive autoantibodies into the brain.
There, the autoantibodies can bind to neurons and accelerate the accumulation of beta amyloid deposits, a hallmark of Alzheimer pathology.
The blood test developed by Dr. Nagele has shown also promise in detecting other diseases, including Parkinsons, multiple sclerosis and breast cancer.
His team research on the role of autoantibodies explains that: All humans possess thousands of autoantibodies in their blood;
These autoantibodies specifically bind to blood-borne cellular debris generated by organs and tissues all over the body;
An individual autoantibody profile is influenced strongly by age, gender and the presence of specific diseases or injuries;
Diseases cause characteristic changes in autoantibody profiles that, when detected, can serve as biomarkers that reveal the presence of the disease.
In Alzheimer, the brain begins to change years before symptoms emerge. Detecting Alzheimer antibodies at the preclinical stage would give patients an opportunity to work with their physician to make lifestyle changes
or receive available treatments before they become symptomatic. Potentially, this early intervention could help those with preclinical Alzheimer avoid
or delay the most devastating symptoms. s osteopathic physicians, we constantly tell patients that a healthy lifestyle is the best medicine for preventing disease.
We also know that many people tune out messages about nutrition and exercise until a health crisis gets their attention,
said Jennifer Caudle, DO, assistant professor of family medicine at Rowan University. can think of a single patient who wouldn take steps to prevent the progression of Alzheimer
if they could directly affect their prognosis. Today, there is no definitive FDA-approved blood test for Alzheimer,
#New Drug Delivery Technique Bypasses Blood-brain barrier Breakthrough could help countless patients with neurological conditions that are currently hard to treat.
Their findings, published in Neurosurgery, lend hope to patients around the world with neurological conditions that are difficult to treat due to a barrier mechanism that prevents approximately 98 percent of drugs from reaching the brain
and central nervous system. e are developing a platform that may eventually be used to deliver a variety of drugs to the brain,
Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical school. lthough we are currently looking at neurodegenerative disease, there is potential for the technology to be expanded to psychiatric diseases, chronic pain,
seizure disorders and many other conditions affecting the brain and nervous system down the road. Using nasal mucosal grafting,
a therapeutic protein in testing for treating Parkinson disease, to the brains of mice. They showed through behavioral
and histological data capture that their delivery method was equivalent to direct injection of GDNF the current gold standard for delivering this drug in Parkinson disease despite its traumatic nature and high complication rates in diffusing drugs
because the therapy has been shown to delay and even reverse disease progression of Parkinson disease in preclinical models.
rain diseases are notoriously difficult to treat due to the natural protections the body builds against intrusion,
and we look forward to the next stage of research to further test its utility in people with Parkinson disease.
Nasal mucosal grafting is a technique regularly used in the ENT field to reconstruct the barrier around the brain after surgery to the skull base.
ENT surgeons commonly use endoscopic approaches to remove brain tumors through the nose by making a window through the blood-brain barrier to access the brain.
with the nasal lining protecting the brain from infection just as the blood brain barrier has done. Illustration of a brain.
Drugs used to treat a variety of central nervous system diseases may be administered through the nose and diffused through an implanted mucosal graft (A,
which represents part of the blood-brain barrier (B). After endoscopic skull base surgery (C), all of these layers are removed
surgeons may create a creen doorto allow for drug delivery to the brain and central nervous system. The technique has the potential to benefit a large population of patients with neurodegenerative disorders,
where there remains a specific unmet need for blood-brain penetrating therapeutic delivery strategies. e see this expanding beyond Parkinson disease,
as there are multiple diseases of the brain that do not have good therapeutic options, Dr. Bleier said. t is a platform that opens doors for new discovery
and could enable drug development for an underserved population
#Step Closer to Prosthetic Limbs That Recreate Sense of touch A new study led by neuroscientists from the University of Chicago brings us one step closer to building prosthetic limbs for humans that re-create a sense of touch through a direct interface with the brain.
and children who suffer from certain types of seizures caused by epilepsy. The tablet is manufactured through a layered process via 3d printing
The FDA has approved previously medical devices including prosthetics made with 3d printing. An agency spokeswoman confirmed the new drug is the first prescription tablet approved that uses the process.
including more neurological drugs. The company is owned privately. Doctors are increasingly turning to 3d printing to create customised implants for patients with rare conditions
and injuries, including children who cannot be treated with adult-size devices. The FDA held a workshop last year for medical manufacturers interested in the technology o
#iphone 6s will be announced in a month The rumoured September 9 (September 10 in Australia) reveal date lines up well with Apple usual September event,
with the device usually going on sale two weeks later. There still debate on whether Apple 2015 device will be called the iphone 7
#iphone leak reveals new parts The video at Unbox Therapy shows what is claimed to be leaked parts of the Apple iphone 6s,
although it said it was xtremely rarethe Unbox Therapy video out today shows the backplate for the iphone 6s,
self-driving cars, Google glass, internet balloons, health care, GOOGLE TV mobile payments, home automation and its Google+social network, among others.
in the longest US isolation experiment yet aimed at helping NASA prepare for a pioneering journey to Mars. The crew includes a French astrobiologist, a German physicist and four Americans a pilot, an architect, a doctor/journalist and a soil
The projects include self-driving cars, Google glass, internet balloons, drones, health care, GOOGLE TV, mobile payments, home automation and its Google+social network, among others.
Dogs wagging their tails to the left were found to be expressing negative emotions such as fear, anxiety and aggression,
"It could be that these trigger settings in the embryo that affect the risk of obesity or diabetes in life,
in the hope of encouraging more hospitals to adopt it. The approach involves inserting a slim,
When used to monitor the brains of people in intensive care after a stroke or head injury,
it warns doctors if glucose starts to dip which can cause brain damage. The probe can theoretically monitor almost any molecule,
but Rostami says the most useful parameters are glucose, which shows if there is a good blood supply,
although the bleeding had stopped, the woman brain glucose levels had fallen, probably caused by other blood vessels constricting.
what going on in the brain after injury is a good thing, says Karim Brohi a trauma specialist at the Royal London Hospital.
But he cautions that there are no figures as yet on whether such monitoring improves survival rates.
Sometimes a second probe is placed near the original site of injury, to provide more information t
in the hope that more hospitals would adopt it. The approach involves inserting a 1-centimetre-long probe directly into the brain.
When used on people in intensive care after a stroke or head injury, it warns doctors
if glucose starts to dip which can cause brain damage. The tool is widely available, but it is not clear yet
whether the information it provides saves lives, meaning it is used largely for research instead. But Rostami believes her use of the probe helped to save a woman life last year.
The woman was in intensive care after a stroke that involved bleeding on the surface of her brain.
although the bleeding had stopped, the woman brain glucose levels were falling, probably because other blood vessels had constricted.
what going on in the brain after injury is a good thing, says Karim Brohi, a trauma specialist at the Royal London Hospital.
But he cautions that there are no figures yet on whether such monitoring does improve survival rates.
and slashed energy prices, there is a risk that toxic compounds in the fracking fluid can get into shallow aquifers via fractures in the bedrock.
or to sculpt scar tissue over wounds in a more seamless way. Designer tissue ach case that a surgeon would be presented with is going to be unique,
says team member Miles Montgomery at the University of Toronto, Canada. ou could build it in situ, almost like designer tissue.
#Cancer trap grabs wandering tumour cells to warn of early spread The trouble with cancer is it spreads sometimes even before someone knows they are ill.
A small implant that traps cancer cells as they migrate through the blood could make a lifesaving early-detection system. his could be the canary in the coal mine,
then once it is in place the implant could be scanned for cancer cells while inside the body either by doctors,
Shea devised the approach along with Jacqueline Jeruss, a breast cancer surgeon. Jeruss had noticed how common it was for her patientsfirst symptom to be breathlessness as the cancer had already spread to their lungs.
They and their colleagues devised an implant made from an inert porous material already used in medical devices,
and loaded it with a signalling molecule called CCL22. This attracts certain immune cells, which encourages cancer cells to follow suit.
the team showed that cancer cells could be detected in the implant while it was still in place, via a new scanning system called optical coherence tomography (OCT). This technique,
In mice, the implants cut the number of tumour cells that migrated to secondary sites like the lungs.
They probably wouldn trap enough cells to work as an anticancer therapy says Shea, but the implant could boost people chances of survival by identifying early on that cancer cells are on the move allowing the patient to begin chemotherapy right away.
The main challenge, says Shea, will be getting the OCT scanner to penetrate human skin, which is thicker than rodent skin.
The new implant should in theory attract a wide range of cancer cells although so far the team have shown only it works for one tumour type other than breast cancer,
such as those who have had already surgery to remove a tumour and might experience a recurrence.
the implant could even be removed and the cells analysed to see which cancer drugs they are most susceptible to.
Gerhardt Attard of the Institute of Cancer Research in London says there is growing interest in personalising cancer treatments by testing cancer cells in the blood. his could be a very powerful way of risk stratifying patients for treatment
#Donated liposuction stem cells could heal difficult wounds IT a quiet revolution. Simple stem cell therapies are finally making their way towards the clinic,
and a treatment for wounds caused by Crohn disease could be the first off-the-shelf therapy to get European union approval.
Hard-to-treat wounds near the anus afflict around 50,000 people in Europe every year. In a phase III trial, a treatment developed by Tigenix in Belgium improved the chances of healing such wounds by 50 per cent and apparently with no adverse side effects.
The therapy uses stem cells derived from donated liposuction tissue which have extremely low levels of the proteins that trigger immune reactions,
says Tigenix head Eduardo Bravo. This means that the treatment, should it be approved after the full results are published next year,
can be given off-the-shelf the stem cells from a single person could be used to treat 2500 people.
By contrast, the only stem-cell-based medicinal product that is currently approved for use in the EU a cornea treatment involves removing cells from each individual eye
And bone-marrow transplants, which also involve stem cells and have been performed for decades, require a matched donor t
and insulin pump can make life a lot easier for people with type 1 diabetes. he sense of potential freedom is amazing,
if a bionic pancreas could free diabetics from the daily routine of monitoring and regulating their glucose levels (New england Journal of Medicine, doi. org/7s4).
Type 1 diabetes is caused by destruction of beta cells in the pancreas that make insulin to control how much sugar circulates in the blood.
When the pancreas is no longer in control, a person risks coma and death from plunging glucose levels.
A glucose sensor and insulin pump, both attached to the abdomen, are used by some people with type 1 diabetes to manage their condition,
so they based the brain on detailed images of the professor grey matter. e could foresee a future in which, before brain surgery,
the surgeon 3d prints a brain out of hydrogel and then practises on it, says Angelini. hen the surgeon knows exactly how that surgery is going to happen. heye made,
I think, a significant advance, says Jennifer Lewis of Harvard. t a beautiful piece of work. One of the limitations, she says,
Analysing those natural vibrations might help spot tumours and other abnormalities, and now an algorithm normally used to study earthquakes has been adapted to do just that.
Lumps can be a sign of cancer, of course, and stiffness in certain organs can indicate disease.
Ultrasound scans that measure the elasticity of the liver, for example, can show up cirrhosis. It is more difficult to measure the elasticity of the brain.
Ultrasound isn an option because it can pass through the skull. Doctors are limited to touching the brain directly
when a section of the skull has been removed during surgery. octors can only feel a few centimetres deep,
so only have information about the elasticity of the surface of the brain, says Stefan Catheline at INSERM in Paris, France.
But such devices haven made it to the clinic yet, in part because they aren very comfortable to use,
says Armando Manduca at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. here could potentially be great value in using
and diagnosis. Catheline hopes his technique will eventually help doctors diagnose diseases and monitor the success of their treatment.
The plaques found in some forms of dementia, for example, have more elasticity than normal brain tissue the new technique might be able to detect those differences.
This can be useful before surgery he says: while a soft mass can be sucked swiftly away,
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