Insect aggression boosted by altering brain metabolismscientists report they can crank up insect aggression simply by interfering with a basic metabolic pathway in the insect brain.
Their study of fruit flies and honey bees shows a direct causal link between brain metabolism (how the brain generates the energy it needs to function) and aggression.
When he and his colleagues looked at brain gene activity in honey bees after they had faced down an intruder the team found that some metabolic genes were suppressed.
In the new study postdoctoral researcher Clare Rittschof used drugs to suppress key steps in oxidative phosphorylation in the bee brains.
We want to know just how this experience gets under their skin to affect their brain.
Using advanced fly genetics the team found this effect only when oxidative phosphorylation was reduced in neurons but not in neighboring cells known as glia.
and are the energy storehouses of the brain Robinson said. The findings offer insight into the immediate and longer-term changes that occur in response to threats Robinson said.
But changes in brain metabolism take much longer and cannot account for this immediate response he said.
or how your brain reacts to stimuli such as taste smell and texture. The survey used metrics designed by Howard Moskowitz a psychophysicist who has helped companies including Ragu enhance flavors to meet consumer demand.
You have purchasers that work with the sensory side of the brain and then you have purchasers that work with the psychological side.
#Potential treatment, prevention of Parkinsons diseaseparkinson's disease affects neurons in the Substantia nigra brain region--their mitochondrial activity ceases and the cells die.
and prevented the degeneration of neurons. They also showed that the two substances rescued the toxic effects of the weed killer Paraquat.
and thus can prevent the degeneration of neurons implicated in Parkinson's disease. Their experiments proved that both substances are lifesavers for neurons:
Adding them to affected cells in other words cells treated with the environmental poison Paraquat or with a down-regulated DJ-1 decreased the toxic effect of the herbicide restored the activity of the mitochondria
and thus ensured the survival of the neurons. We do not yet understand how exactly D-lactate
#Engineering a protein to prevent brain damage from toxic agentsresearch at New york University is paving the way for a breakthrough that may prevent brain damage in civilians
Organophosphates permanently bond to neurotransmitters in the brain interfering with their ability to function and causing irreversible damage.
He and Neuroscience Program graduate student Claudia Lutz measured the foraging activities of bees in several locations including some in hives in a controlled foraging environment.
and brain cardiovascular system eyes and urinary tract Dalaly explained. Some claim it's the world's healthiest food.
Some of the genes that were activated differently in the honey-eating bees have been linked to protein metabolism brain-signaling and immune defense.
) the systematic review also found that gardens could offer welcome spaces for interactions with visitors helping to stimulate memories for dementia patients
We think that gardens could be benefitting dementia sufferers by providing them with sensory stimulation and an environment that triggers memories.
Scans of Khroma's skull showed she had a brain slightly smaller than that of a newborn elephant
Those changes include a shifting of blood from the extremities to the body's core including the brain and heart.
Blood coursing into Lyuba's brain due to the mammalian diving reflex may have provided the iron source for the vivianite nodules according to the authors.
#Study of noninvasive retinal imaging device presented at Alzheimers conferencea noninvasive optical imaging device developed at Cedars-Sinai can provide early detection of changes that later occur in the brain
Keith Black MD professor and chair of Cedars-Sinai's Department of Neurosurgery director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute and the Ruth and Lawrence Harvey Chair in Neuroscience said the accumulation
of beta-amyloid plaque in the brain is a hallmark sign of Alzheimer's but current tests detect changes only after the disease has advanced to late stages.
and cerebrospinal fluid analysis requires that patients undergo invasive and often painful lumbar punctures but neither approach is quite feasible especially for patients in the earlier stages of disease he said.
The retina unlike other structures of the eye is part of the central nervous system sharing many characteristics of the brain.
A few years ago we discovered at Cedars-Sinai that the plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease occur not only in the brain but also in the retina.
By'staining'the plaque with curcumin a component of the common spice turmeric we could detect it in the retina even before it began to accumulate in the brain.
This clinical trial was designed to enable researchers to correlate retinal plaque detected by optical imaging with brain plaque detected by PET scans.
Studies involved patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's a group with mild cognitive impairment and a group of people with no evidence of brain abnormality.
Maya Koronyo-Hamaoui Phd assistant professor of neurosurgery in the Department of Neurosurgery and the Department of Biomedical sciences and Yosef Koronyo a research scientist were first authors of the original results that were published in a journal and presented
It further demonstrates significant correlation with brain amyloid burden thereby predicting accumulation of plaques in the brain through the retina said Koronyo-Hamaoui a faculty principal investigator and head of the Neuroimmunology and Retinal Imaging Laboratory at Cedars-Sinai.
First discovered five years ago Rice's silicon oxide memories are a type of two-terminal resistive random-access memory (RRAM) technology.
This memory is superior to all other two-terminal unipolar resistive memories by almost every metric Tour said.
At the same time the researchers also conducted countless tests to compare the performance of silicon oxide memories with competing dielectric RRAM technologies.
Wang said We also demonstrated that the porous silicon oxide material increased the endurance cycles more than 100 times as compared with previous nonporous silicon oxide memories.
Finally the porous silicon oxide material has a capacity of up to nine bits per cell that is highest number among oxide-based memories
and flavoring material can reverse the biomechanical cellular and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with Parkinsonâ##s disease (PD).
and the Floyd A. Davis professor of neurology at Rush. â#oethis could potentially be one of the safest approaches to halt disease progression in Parkinsonâ##s patients. â#â#oecinnamon is metabolized in the liver to sodium benzoate
spectrometric analysis we have seen that Ceylon cinnamon is much more pure than Chinese cinnamon as the latter contains coumarin a hepatotoxic moleculeâ#said Pahan. â#oeunderstanding how the disease works is important to developing effective drugs that protect the brain
and DJ-1 decrease in the brain of PD patients. â#The study found that after oral feeding ground cinnamon is metabolized into sodium benzoate
which then enters into the brain stops the loss of Parkin and DJ-1 protects neurons normalizes neurotransmitter levels
and improves motor functions in mice with PD. This research was supported by grants from National institutes of health. â#oenow we need to translate this finding to the clinic and test ground cinnamon in patients with PD.
If these results are replicated in PD patients it would be a remarkable advance in the treatment of this devastating neurodegenerative diseaseâ#said Dr. Pahan.
Gradual degeneration of these cells causes a reduction in a vital chemical neurotransmitter dopamine. The decrease in dopamine results in one or more of the classic signs of Parkinson's disease that includes:
and colleagues of the Institute of Transformative Biomolecules (WPI-ITBM) of Nagoya University have finally found the missing piece in how birds sense light by identifying a deep brain photoreceptor in Japanese quails in
Although it has been known for over 100 years that vertebrates apart from mammals detect light deep inside their brains the true nature of the key photoreceptor has remained to be a mystery up until now.
This study led by Professor Yoshimura has revealed that nerve cells existing deep inside the brains of quails called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)- contacting neurons respond directly to light.
His studies also showed that these neurons are involved in detecting the arrival of spring and thus regulates breeding activities in birds.
On the other hand vertebrates apart from mammals receive light directly inside their brains and sense the changes in day length.
We had revealed already in previous studies reported in 2010 (PNAS) that a photoreceptive protein Opsin-5 exists in the quail's hypothalamus in the brain says Professor Yoshimura.
This Opsin-5 protein was expressed in the CSF-contacting neurons which protrudes towards the third ventricle of the brain.
However there was no direct evidence to show that the CSF-contacting neurons were detecting light directly
Yoshimura's group has used the patch-clamp technique for brain slices in order to investigate the light responses (action potential) of the CSF-contacting neurons.
As a result it was found that the cells were activated upon irradiation of light. Even when the activities of neurotransmitters were inhibited the CSF-contacting neurons'response towards light did not diminish suggesting that they were directly responding to the light says Professor Yoshimura excitedly.
In addition when the RNA interference method was used to inhibit the activity of the Opsin-5 protein expressed in the CSF-contacting neurons the secretion of the thyroid-stimulating hormone from the pars tuberalis of the pituitary gland was inhibited.
The thyroid-stimulating hormone so-called the spring calling hormone stimulates another hormone which triggers spring breeding in birds.
We have been able to show that the CSF-contacting neurons directly respond to light and are the key photoreceptors that control breeding activity in animals
There have been many theories on the role of CSF-contacting neurons in response to light.
Our studies have revealed that these neurons are actually the photoreceptors working deep inside the bird's brain.
As eyes are generated as a protrusion of the third ventricle CSF-contacting neurons expressing Opsin-5 can be considered as an ancestral organ which shares the same origin as the visual cells of the eyes.
Brain blends individual notes to create a new odor identitythe chemical odor codes are translated into olfactory stimulus patterns
and process them in the brain the individual odor components do not just add up. Rather the individual olfactory notes are translated into a new odor identity.
But while it may seem to our ears that sweet by any other name means the same thing new research shows that taste-related words actually engage the emotional centers of the brain more than literal words with the same meaning.
Researchers from Princeton university and the Free University of Berlin report in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience the first study to experimentally show that the brain processes these everyday metaphors differently than literal language.
while the researchers recorded their brain activity. Each taste-related word was swapped then with a literal counterpart
Interestingly the metaphorical and literal words only resulted in brain activity related to emotion when part of a sentence but stimulated the gustatory cortices both in sentences and as stand-alone words.
Metaphorical sentences may spark increased brain activity in emotion-related regions because they allude to physical experiences said co-author Adele Goldberg a Princeton professor of linguistics in the Council of the Humanities.
The new research suggests that these associations go beyond just being descriptive to engage our brains on an emotional level
If metaphors in general elicit an emotional response from the brain that is similar to that caused by taste-related metaphors then that could mean that figurative language presents a rhetorical advantage
Colloquially metaphors seem to be employed precisely to evoke an emotional reaction yet the actual emotional effect of figurative phrases on the person hearing them has not before been explored deeply said Benjamin Bergen an associate professor of cognitive science at the University of California-San diego who studies language comprehension
The brain areas that taste-related words did not stimulate are also an important outcome of the study Citron said.
Existing research on metaphors and neural processing has shown that figurative language generally requires more brainpower than literal language Citron
The brain activity Citron and Goldberg observed did not correlate with this process. In order to create the metaphorical-and literal-sentence stimuli they had a group of people separate from the study participants rate sentences for familiarity apparent arousal imageability
Thus the brain activity the researchers recorded was not likely to be in response to any additional difficulty study participants had in understanding the metaphors.
and elicit enhanced brain responses in several brain regions Citron said. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Princeton university.
and because the brain has a preference for sweetness it diminishes the perception of bitterness.
The addition of phantom aromas such as vanilla berry citrus bacon or even cheese can distract the brain from acknowledging a bitter to taste.
or bitter signal to the brain. When deciding which food additives to use to diminish bitter taste formulators must consider differences in regional diets for effective solutions said Sobel.
#Cocoa extract may counter specific mechanisms of Alzheimers diseasea specific preparation of cocoa-extract called Lavado may reduce damage to nerve pathways seen in Alzheimer's disease patients'brains long before they develop symptoms according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of medicine
Specifically the study results using mice genetically engineered to mimic Alzheimer's disease suggest that Lavado cocoa extract prevents the protein Î-amyloid-(AÎ) from gradually forming sticky clumps in the brain
and vegetables with past studies suggesting that they prevent degenerative diseases of the brain. The Mount sinai study results revolve around synapses the gaps between nerve cells.
Within healthy nerve pathways each nerve cell sends an electric pulse down itself until it reaches a synapse where it triggers the release of chemicals called neurotransmitters that float across the gap
and cause the downstream nerve cell to fire and pass on the message. The disease-causing formation of AÎ oligomers--groups of molecules loosely attracted to each other-build up around synapses.
The theory is that these sticky clumps physically interfere with synaptic structures and disrupt mechanisms that maintain memory circuits'fitness.
and eventually cognitive decline says lead investigator Giulio Maria Pasinetti MD Phd Saunders Family Chair and Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of medicine at Mount sinai.
Evidence in the current study is the first to suggest that adequate quantities of specific cocoa polyphenols in the diet over time may prevent the glomming together of AÎ into oligomers that damage the brain as a means to prevent Alzheimer's disease.
and reversing damage to synapses in the study mice. There have been some inconsistencies in medical literature regarding the potential benefit of cocoa polyphenols on cognitive function says Dr. Pasinetti.
It also strongly supports further studies to identify the metabolites of Lavado cocoa extract that are active in the brain
A 2011 study on sheep published in the journal Kenya Veterinarian showed that the plant caused emphysema pneumonia bleeding ulcers brain swelling and death among other effects.
and brain building molecules for premature babies or a drink that slows digestion so people feel fuller for longer.
and may pose threats to brain development during gestation potentially resulting in developmental delay or autism.
because the developing fetal brain may be more vulnerable than it is in adults. Because these pesticides are neurotoxic in utero exposures during early development may distort the complex processes of structural development
In that early developmental gestational period the brain is developing synapses the spaces between neurons where electrical impulses are turned into neurotransmitting chemicals that leap from one neuron to another to pass messages along.
Although Hv1a/GNA was carried to the brain of the honeybee it had no effect on the insect
They also looked at case reports of people suffering encephalopathy (brain condition) following exposure to DEET in the 1980s.
which raises concerns about the potential addictiveness of water pipe smoking and possible effects on the developing brains of children
Prenatal exposure to tobacco smoke on inhibition controlindividuals prenatally exposed to tobacco smoke exhibited weaker response in some regions of the brain
Individuals prenatally exposed to tobacco smoke exhibited less activity in regions of the brain in response to a task that measured inhibitory control vs. neutral stimuli.
#Scientists link Africanized honeybees changing roles throughout their lives to brain chemistryscientists have been linking an increasing range of behaviors
A report published in ACS'Journal of Proteome Research presents new data that link the amounts of certain neuropeptides in these notorious bees'brains with their jobs inside and outside the hive.
whether peptides in the brain were associated with the bees'shifting duties. They found that the amounts of two substances varied by time
and location in the brains of the honeybees in a way that mirrored the timing of their changing roles.
Thus these neuropeptides appear to have some functions in the honeybee brain that are specifically related to the age-related division of labor the scientists conclude.
and are associated with many chronic diseases including cancer diabetes neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases. Cells keep oxidative stress under control through various mechanisms said Donna Zhang a professor in the UA Department of Pharmacology
#Synthetic gene circuits pump up cell signals in study of neurodegenerative diseasessynthetic genetic circuitry created by researchers at Rice university is helping them see for the first time how to regulate cell mechanisms that degrade the misfolded proteins implicated in Parkinson's Huntington
These aggregates can form plaques as often seen in the brains of people with neurodegenerative diseases.
and neurodegenerationwhen cannibals ate brains of people who died from prion disease many of them fell ill with the fatal neurodegenerative disease as well.
but they share features with more common neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease. Trying to understand the unusual susceptibility of bank voles to prions from other species Stanley Prusiner Joel Watts Kurt Giles
and thereby destroy the brain. And because that process is similar across many neurodegenerative diseases better understanding prion disease development might have broader implications.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by PLOS. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and safety said J. Patrick Johnson MD a neurosurgery spine specialist and director of Spine Education and the Neurosurgery Spine Fellowship program in the Department of Neurosurgery.
Johnson and Kim as study co-authors are Doniel Drazin MD a senior resident in the Department of Neurosurgery and Robert S. Pashman MD a clinical associate professor and orthopedic spine surgeon at the Cedars
Secondly we've wanted to improve the delivery of the therapeutic into the brain to combat West Nile virus at the place where it does the greatest harm.
However this antibody was not to be able to accumulate at high levels in the brain.
One approach to tackle this challenge is to program into the therapeutic antibodies the capability of binding to receptors that can help the MABS to cross into the brain.
Chen wanted to use this strategy to produce a more effective way to combat West Nile virus. In the new study they improved upon their phu-E16 design making half a dozen new variants that could for the first time lead to the development of MABS that effectively target the brain
when the virus has already spread to the brain. In each case they protected up to 90 percent of the mice from lethal infection.
and other neurological diseases said Chen. Our next step is to move this forward with the development of bifunctional MABS that can target to the brain with the ultimate goal of entering human clinical trials.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Arizona State university. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
We found that the brown lesions in the cortex were suppressed completely by DPA application even
whereas carbamates and organophosphates target the neurotransmitter Acetylcholinesterase encoded by the gene ACE-1. This is where Tiassalã mosquitoes yielded another surprise contributing to their exceptionally high carbamate resistance.
#Bees capable of learning feats with tasty prize in sightthey may have tiny brains but bumblebees are capable of some remarkable learning feats especially
The findings by a team from Rice's Center for Digital Learning and Scholarship and Duke's Department of psychology and Neuroscience demonstrate how technology
and cognitive science can be combined to develop inexpensive but effective educational changes that required no changes to course curriculum.
To test how well some of those cognitive science principles worked in a classroom we made subtle changes to standard homework practice.
The second style which was called the intervention incorporated three principles from cognitive science that have been shown to promote learning
when this practice is spaced out over time said study co-author Elizabeth Marsh associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke.
and shows the immense potential of applying these technologies for future patients said Tyler Mark Pierson MD Phd a pediatric neurologist and member of the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Neurology at Cedars-Sinai.
Pierson a member of the research faculty at the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute is first author of an article in Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology that published online March 3 ahead
which caused significant issues with brain development resulting in global developmental delay. The NIH-UDP is a program of NIH's National Human genome Research Institute (NHGRI) Office of Rare Diseases Research and Clinical Center.
The GRIN2A gene influences electrochemical events that affect the flow and strength of electrical impulses in the brain.
We believe this GRIN2A mutation initiated changes in the child's brain that led to intractable seizures which contributed to his poor development
and slim cypresses as well as vineyards as far as the eye can see--these are typical memories of Tuscany for all those who have been there.
so it makes more sense to look at the entire dietary pattern says Ms Marjo Eskelinen MSC who presented the results in her doctoral thesis in the field of neurology.
It acts on female goats'brains to turn their reproductive systems on. The study is the first to uncover a pheromone that activates the central reproductive axis according to the researchers.
and structure of the brain's reproductive center is conserved highly among mammals. In goats the researchers already knew it is the hair of males not the urine that shows male effect pheromone activity.
Those analyses uncovered several chemicals specific to intact male goats including one in particular 4-ethyloctanal with the power to activate the gonadotropin-releasing hormone pulse generator in the female brain
The researchers were able to show the effects of that ingredient using a method they developed for real-time electrophysiological monitoring of a key part of the goats'brains.
The software uses multiple camera viewpoints to build the 3d model in much the same way that your brain infers 3d structure using your two eyes Messinger said.
Eating foods that contain Vitamin c may reduce your risk of the most common type of hemorrhagic stroke according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia April 26 to May 3 2014.
The study involved 65 people who had experienced an intracerebral hemorrhagic stroke or a blood vessel rupture inside the brain.
The above story is provided based on materials by American Academy of Neurology (AAN. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length g
The team investigated the expression of aggression genes in the brains and ovaries of paper wasps--Polistes metricus.
We found that the most important influence on expression of genes in the brains of paper wasps was external factors such as the season
But our results show that the external environment plays a much greater role in regulating expression of genes in the brain
which they are currently being used said study lead author Jeff Bronstein a professor of neurology
The results of the epidemiological study appear Feb 5 2014 in the online issue of Neurology the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Exposure to pesticides starts a cascade of cellular events preventing ALDH from keeping a lid on DOPAL a toxin that naturally occurs in the brain.
When ALDH does not detoxify DOPAL sufficiently it accumulates damages neurons and increases an individual's risk of developing Parkinson's.
The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (P01es016732 R01es010544 5r21es16446-2 and U54es012078) the National Institute of Neurological disorders and Stroke (NS038367) the Veterans Administration Healthcare
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system characterized by blood brain (BBB) permeability and demyelination a process in
which the insulating myelin sheaths of neurons are damaged. The disease is thought to be triggered in a genetically susceptible individual by a combination of one or more environmental factors.
and show that epsilon toxin kills the brain's myelin producing cells oligodendrocytes; the same cells that die in MS lesions says Jennifer Linden of Weill Cornell Medical College who presented the research.
They discovered that the toxin did target the brain cells associated with MS pathology. But that was not all they found.
Originally we only thought that epsilon toxin would target the brain endothelium cells and oligodendrocytes;
In a study published online today in JAMA Neurology Rutgers scientists discuss their findings in which levels of DDE the chemical compound left
and DDE may trigger neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's is crucial. I think these results demonstrate that more attention should be focused on potential environmental contributors
Brain cell studies also found that DDT and DDE increased the amount of a protein associated with plaques believed to be a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.
These sticky amyloid proteins--which may form in regions of the brain involved in memory learning
and clump together in the brain and increase as the disease progresses. This new research is important Richardson says
Much of the research into Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases has mostly been centered on finding genetic connections Richardson says.
and other neurodegenerative diseases the earlier someone is diagnosed the more options there may be available. Story Source:
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