Whitaker Foundation funds Washington University biomedical engineering facility
...ence to yield information about signal processing, sensory perception and motor control and neural imaging. "The job outlook is outstanding for biomedical engineers, both in the medical profession and in industry," said Yin. "I think the medical profession, for one, benefits greatly from having physicians ...$500,000 gift launches new clinical research effort in peripheral neuropathy
...treat peripheral nerve damage, to assess motor and sensory nerve function and to monitor the effects of treatment. The researchers also hope to determine the feasibility of establishing a national database and registry of patients with peripheral neuropathy in order to gather the first accurate and compreh...Smell, taste may influence lifespan of the roundworm C. elegans
...genes targeted, the roundworms lost some degree of sensory perception. Theresearchers ultimately focused much of their research on two of the numerous mutated genes studied,daf-10 and osm-5. Whether humans have a hormone signaling system that regulates lifespan remains to be seen, saysKenyon, but the fact t...Engineered mice point to new target for pain relief
...The stimulus hasn't disappeared, but the olfactory sensory cells that first responded to the smells ignore the stimulus after a time. Beta-arrestin is part of the cell's machinery that produces desensitization to morphine after the morphine molecule initially binds to a receptor on the surface of nerve ce......h suggested that each nostril sends almost all its sensory information to its own side of the brain. Because the right hemisphere of the brain controls emotional processing, this could explain why smells might be perceived to have a different degree of pleasantness when sniffed through the right nostril. "Y...National prize in neuroscience endowed by UNC professor
...he first to document the existence of nociceptors, sensory fibers specially activated by tissue damage and their relation to the sensation of pain. He continues to explore the biological bases of pain sensation. "The prize allows me to acknowledge the University for the opportunities it has given me," he sa...... on whole organism physiology or the conversion of sensory stimuli into meaningful cognition," says Dr. Hirsh. "The Hughes grant will enable Columbia to enhance its program by hiring several new outstanding young scholars." Columbia, like other academic medical institutions, is committed to helping young fac...Modern-day butterflies 'invented' by bats
...e insects have developed and been able to use this sensory defence to stay alive during the night." On Barro Colorado Island in Panam, Yack and Fullard found night-flying butterflies that possess ears on their wings that detect calls used by bats to locate and track prey. When the researchers exposed the noc...Evolutionary implications: myoglobin-like proteins found in ancient microorganisms
...nment. "These proteins may help to understand how sensory systems evolved in higher organisms," said Alam, lead author on the Nature paper. Cells must continually sense their changing environment, interpret the sensation and adapt to new surroundings. In multicellular organisms (including humans), sensing i...Bees wearing reflectors help scientists track insects training flights
...the U. of I. "That would be a huge change in your sensory environment, and it would probably take time for you to adjust. That's how it is for the bees." Capaldi's U. of I. colleagues on the study were Susan Fahrbach and Gene Robinson, professors in the entomology department and neuroscience program. The s...Brain cell 'chorus' appears as attention increases
...close attention to one item in a flood of incoming sensory information, according to a report in this week's ... allow them to pay attention to a single stream of sensory input. "Every second, we get millions or hundreds of millions of bits of information coming in from...Bitter taste receptors identified
...te receptor genes. The genes resembled other known sensory receptor genes and were expressed in the appropriate places inside taste receptor cells on the tongue and palate. But Zuker and Ryba hypothesized that two receptors seemed far too few to handle the huge number of chemicals that produce sweet and bitt...Studies of clumsy flies yield molecule important in balance, hearing
...t flies have identified a central component of the sensory machinery that underlies balance, touch and hearin...le suffer from hearing loss due to defects in this sensory machinery. In an article published in the March 24, 2000, issue of the journal Science , the rese...Creating a standard spectrum of smell
...enge to researchers because it can distort data in sensory research labs. Friedrich noted a classic example of this sensory-test problem from a study performed at the Western Regional Research Laboratory in Albany, Calif., more than 30 years ago. Test subjects sniffed isobutyric acid, which smells like dirt...Genes or environment: what shapes the sensory homunculus?
...arvard Medical School researchers have found. The sensory homunculus is the familiar textbook caricature of ...ly thought to arise in response to the activity of sensory neurons feeding information to the brain. In the April Nature Neuroscience, however, researchers led...Study of rats brains indicates brain continues to grow after puberty
...cquisition, but we are seeing changes in a primary sensory region. How this relates to the rest of the corpus callosum, we don't know."...Nerve protein shown crucial to sensations of pain from heat, injury
... shown that a proteinlodged on the surface of many sensory nerves triggers the nerves to fire painsignals whe...peratures that would produce pain from injury, but sensory nerves in thebody's internal organs express VRI as well, and if these organs become inflamedfrom inf...The power of the mother-child bond
..."Memories are not only formed as a result of early sensory experiences with alcohol in the context of the mot...arly learning about alcohol appears to be based on sensory experience and the context in which alcohol is experienced." Indeed, Mennella believes this study s...Give it a thought -- and make it so
...es that simulate the feel of virtual objects, with sensory trackers that measure eye, head, and finger movements. Recently the lab added virtual people, robot-like actors with which volunteers can interact in a limited way. So in the future will we all be wearing little caps that will let us open doors, chan...Northwestern researchers clone gene responsible for inner ear motor
...tical to the functioning of the outer hair cell, a sensory receptor cell unique to the inner ear of mammals. ... the signals received by the inner hair cells, the sensory cells located in the cochlea that are responsible for communicating with the central nervous system....