Drug addiction, learning share common brain protein
...cells of control mice. Neurons from mice lacking a functional copy of PSD-95 showed a similar increase in activity, the team reported. Mice deficient in PSD-95 also became more hyperactive than normal mice following cocaine injection, further linking the protein to the drug's brain effects. However, the defic...Study in worms shows how genes linked to complexity in animals
...es in gene expression contribute to structural and functional differences between species," she said. "In this case, C. elegans' excretory system can handle excessive levels of salt, which may give the worms an additional benefit of living in naturally salty environments where other worms can't survive." T...HIV exhausts the immune system through chronic non-specific activation
...ific premature maturation of many of the remaining functional T-cells. The resulting premature aging and exhaustion of the immune system increase the likelihood of opportunistic infection. HIV targets white blood cells with surface receptors called CD4. These CD4, or helper, T-cells normally orchestrate the bod...Discovery could lead to better treatment for cryptosporidum infections
...sma gondii, which causes encephalitis, showed that functional pyrimidine de novo synthesis is "essential for the development, and hence virulence, of this parasite in the host." What the UGA team has demonstrated in this paper is that the parasite escapes this pinch by "salvaging" pyrimidines from the cells of ...Nanoparticle probes are destined for major new role in medical diagnostics and drug delivery
..." Dr. Nie says. "Scientists have begun to develop functional nanoparticles that are linked to biological molecules such as peptides, proteins and DNA." By virtue of their miniature size nanoparticles assume special properties that distinguish them from larger particles, including the ability to emit light in...Unlocking the genetics and evolution of the dog could prove beneficial for humans
...e different aspects of the dog, yet one can find a functional reason for why this would be so," he explained. Lark pointed out that this type of genetic reciprocation, or trade-off mechanism, is what you might expect in a hound that pursues prey successful hunting hounds have long snouts, but long, thin bones...Dyslexics not doomed to life of reading difficulties
...d meaning are interrelated." The researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to measure the impact of the intervention that emphasized these three word forms on brains of fourth through sixth grade dyslexic children. Aylward, a UW professor of radiology, said that images of the brain region...Special training may help people with autism recognize faces
...ward, a professor of radiology who interpreted the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) used in the study. She said that in adults the fusiform gyrus is reliably activated in face processing, but it takes time for a child's brain wiring to become functional. This process starts early and by age 12 nor...Researchers adapt RNA interference to study gene function on a large scale
...ces have been determined, is to extract meaningful functional information from those projects," said HHMI resear...r a guide to further biological studies to map the functional cellular protein machinery that the genes produce in living organisms. "The idea is that with this...Scientists' findings may lead to better understanding of how that sleep develops, matures
...f specific EEG markers may reflect their different functional roles in the sleep process during infancy....JCI table of contents, February 2, 2004
... wounds. The notion that the ability to regenerate functional epidermal tissue is an exclusive property of epidermal stem cells is a general assumption in the stem cell biology field. In the February 2 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Pritinder Kaur and colleagues at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Ce...Skin regeneration not isolated to epidermal stem cells
... wounds. The notion that the ability to regenerate functional epidermal tissue is an exclusive property of epidermal stem cells is a general assumption in the stem cell biology field. In the February 2 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Pritinder Kaur and colleagues at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Ce...Sex in the brain: How do male monkeys evaluate mates?
..., a national research team has discovered. Through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and collaborating institutions for the first time peered into the brains of fully conscious nonhuman primates to learn what's really on their minds when it comes...Transgenic animals produced using cultured sperm
...rovirus. Those cells go on to develop into mature, functional sperm. The genetically modified, cultured sperm ar...of spermatagonia and stimulate them to mature into functional sperm," said Dr. Sakai, the study's senior author and a reproductive biologist. One of the biggest...Fat cells fight disease, Purdue University researchers find
...ck, animal sciences professor. "Adipocytes can be functional and beneficial without creating obesity," Spurlock said. "The key is that we want plenty of adipocytes to meet whatever immunological and endocrinological needs they fulfill, but we don't want them to overaccumulate lipid." In the January issue of T...Gene may be key to evolution of larger human brain
... the cerebral cortex. Lahn and his colleagues plan functional comparisons of the ASPM protein among different species, to understand how this gene's function or regulation changes with evolution....The Lions of Tsavo: Exploring the Legacy of Africa's Notorious Man-eaters
...volutionary origins, growth, development, ecology, functional morphology and behavior." But none of the more that 175,000 mammal specimens at the museum has a more compelling and involved story than "Ghost" and "Darkness," shot by Col. John Patterson (no relation to Dr. Patterson) more than a century ago. ...Rapidly evolving genes providing new insights in plant evolution
...cies towards neutrality and lack of as many strong functional constraints as in slowly evolving genes. He also found that rapidly evolving genes provide more characters because they keep mutating more quickly. "Between the quality and the quantity, we were able to obtain more historical signals from rapidly e...Evolutionary Genomics meeting in Tucson
...e University of Arizona's program in evolutionary, functional and computational genomics and sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Program. Once geneticists examined individual genes and studied how they functioned. Now that biologists hav...Research reveals brain has biological mechanism to block unwanted memories
...ere tested while having their brains scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at Stanford's Lucas Center for Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. The researchers randomly divided the 36 word pairs into three sets of 12. In the first set, volunteers were asked to look at the first word in the pair ...