Soil particles found to boost prion's capacity to infect
...at prions, the protein agents of a family of fatal brain disorders, bind tightly to a common soil mineral and significantly increase the oral transmissibility of the agent. The finding is important because it may help explain how chronic wasting disease and scrapie persist in the environment and spread e...Study advances vCJD prion detection
...ns - abnormal proteins that progressively kill off brain tissue and are thought to cause the disease. Th...f vCJD prions can be amplified from infected human brain tissue extracts prepared from normal human platelets - a type of blood cell essential for clotting. ...Tracing Parkinson's lethal mechanism
...xin called MPTP is used to produce Parkinsons-like brain pathology. In earlier studies, they had found that...e in human PD. They found reduced Prx2 activity in brain tissue from PD patients. These findings provide a mechanistic link of how a mitochondrial damaging......ainful world. Now, researchers have pinpointed the brain region responsible for pains ability to affect cog...processing. They have found that this pain-related brain region is distinct from the one involved in cognitive processing interference due to a distracting m...University of Cincinnati receives $1.7M to research molecular treatment of brain injury
... research that could lead to better treatments for brain injury patients. Kenneth Strauss, PhD, will stud...ds (eye-KO-sa-noids), which are created by injured brain cells, to confirm that they can actually protect healthy brain cells from further damage. If succ...Variant CJD -- Prion amplification breakthrough brings new insights and hopes for a blood test
...time that variant CJD prions can be amplified from brain tissue samples using normal blood cells to improve...long silent period before the prion spreads to the brain and causes neurological symptoms. It is now clear that during this silent period individuals can pas...Researchers identify genetic mutation that may alter tumor cell proliferation
...uding lung, breast ovary, prostate, colorectal and brain cancers. This mutation in AKT1 is striking direct evidence for the role of AKT1 in cancer formation. The identification of the AKT1 mutation was a collaborative effort between Eli Lilly & Company and TGen. This discovery demonstrates the importanc...Alzheimer's prevention role discovered for prions
...y help to prevent the plaques that build up in the brain to cause Alzheimers disease. The possible function...have shown that the normal prion proteins found in brain cells reduce the formation of beta-amyloid, a protein that binds with others to build plaques in the...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...nd hypothalamus. There were no apparent changes in brain structure with MPH treatment. Although the neuroch...ure or conditioning to a sublethal injury protects brain tissue against subsequent ischemia. If the phenomenon were better understood, it might be harnessed ...Manganese levels increase in scrapie-infected sheep before clinical symptoms develop
...n. At present, only post-mortem examination of the brain tissue gives a certain diagnosis. Scrapie, Bovin...JD) are neurodegenerative diseases that affect the brain and nervous system of sheep, cows and humans respectively. They are transmitted by mis-formed pri...Chronically sleep deprived? You can't make up for lost sleep
...ty, over five consecutive days. The team monitored brain wave and muscle activity patterns in order to precisely quantify sleep-wake patterns. After the first day of sleep loss, animals compensated by increasing their intensity, or depth, of sleep, which is indicative of a homeostatic response. However, ...The Cancer Genome Atlas awards funds for technology development
...types of tumors being studied in the pilot include brain cancer (glioblastoma), ovarian cancer and lung cancer (squamous cell), which together account for more than 200,000 cases of cancer in the United States each year. In addition to the detailed genomic data it will generate, there is great hope that...Endometriosis increases the risk of certain cancers
...cer (33%). Slightly lower increases were found for brain tumours (27%) and malignant melanoma (23%), and there was a small increased risk of breast cancer (8%). Interestingly, women with endometriosis had a reduced risk of cervical cancer of just under a third (29%). There was no significant difference b...M. D. Anderson team identifies new oncogene for brain cancer
...cated in the development of two types of malignant brain cancer in a paper by researchers at The University...er proteins to fuel development and progression of brain tumors, says senior author Wei Zhang, Ph.D., professor in M. D. Andersons Department of Pathology. ...Stressed-out African naked mole-rats may provide clues about human infertility
... length and social stress act through areas of the brain that control reproduction and, as it is likely that such neuroendocrine pathways are similar across species, understanding how they work in naked mole-rats could lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in some stress-related inferti...New method for reading DNA sheds light on basis of cell identity
...mains sit near genes important to various types of brain cells, but are notably absent from genes that would be active only in, say, skin cells or blood cells. Looking at a cell through a microscope often cannot tell you what kind of cell it is, or more importantly, what it has the potential to become, ...Cloned pigs help scientists towards a breakthrough in Alzheimer's
... US alone, 5 million people suffer from this human brain disorder and globally the number is set at approx. 24 million (source: Alzheimer's Disease International: http://www.alz.co.uk/ ) - In the light of the intense focus on medical research at the University of Copenhagen and the continuous expansion......ta-endorphin is a kind of morphine released by the brain in response to several situations, such as pain. I...r someone may become an alcoholic. When a subjects brain with low beta-endorphin levels gets used to the presence of an exogenous surplus, then, when its own...Modern brains have an ancient core
..., the chemical signals are produced by specialised brain centres such as the hypothalamus and secreted into...he journal Cell they report that hormone-secreting brain centres are much older than expected and likely evolved from multifunctional cells of the last commo......ing also contributes to the aggressiveness of some brain cancers (glioblastomas). Now theres a new activity for these proteins at cilia, said co-author Elizabeth P. Henske, M.D., a medical oncologist and genetics researcher who studies the genetic basis of kidney tumors. This complex HEF1 and Aurora A f...