Cure found for Huntington disease in mice offers hope for treatment in humans
...isk, caregiver or friend. The disease results from degeneration of neurons in certain areas of the brain causing uncontrolled movements, loss of intellectual faculties, and emotional disturbances. Currently, there is no treatment to delay or prevent HD in patients....Salk and Stanford teams join forces to reveal two paths of neurodegeneration
...searchers observed, These findings show that axon degeneration after injury or developmental pruning requires dif...the same axons in newborn Wlds mice and found that degeneration was slowed. "When I saw RGC axons in the superior colliculus that appeared morphologically perfect f...New step toward treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy
... muscular dystrophy is a progressive weakening and degeneration of the muscles, caused by a mutation in a gene coding for a protein called dystrophin. This protein is absent in the muscles of people affected with the disorder. With the healthy muscle cells grafted by the team of researchers, a considerable propor...Loss of central vision with age may be linked to quality of dietary carbohydrates
Boston-- Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the leading causes of vision loss ...k of developing signs of early age-related macular degeneration when compared with women who consumed diets with a lower dietary glycemic index," says lead author C...For Stanford scientists, RNAi gene therapy takes two steps forward, one step back
...Ai therapies now in human trials - two for macular degeneration and one for a type of pneumonia. However, these studies involve simply infusing the RNAi molecules into the eye or lung. The RNAi effects in these therapies aren't permanent. Instead, patients may need to receive repeat doses of the RNAi. If RNAi is ...Harvard Medical signs agreement with Merck to develop potential therapy for macular degeneration
...en implicated in some forms of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and Stargardt Disease, a juvenile form of bl...owering these toxic molecules could do for macular degeneration what cholesterol measurements and cholesterol-lowering drugs, such as the statin class, have done fo...Gene therapy for chicken model of childhood blindness
...of function of these receptor cells leads to their degeneration and eventually breakdown of the retina the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. There is an animal model of LCA1, a strain of chickens with a mutation in the chicken GUCY2D gene. These chickens develop a disease very similar to that of hum...Protein connections: A network to understand disease
...zed by loss of balance and coordination because of degeneration of specific nerve cells. The concept can be used t...y," said Lim. All of them caused the same kind of degeneration in nerve cells, even though they were different genes making different proteins. "We felt they must...'Smart' genetic therapy helps the body to heal itself
...dence of about 1 in every 6,000 newborns. Due to degeneration of the motor neurons in the spinal cord patients develop muscle weakness and atrophy of the legs, arms and trunk. In patients with SMA the survival motor neuron genes (SMN1) is deleted, but they all carry a copy gene (SMN2). However, this only prod...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...) of up to 24 hours. The seizures were followed by degeneration of ipsilateral CA3, hilar, and CA1 neurons, but apparently complete behavioral recovery. GCD was evident within 7 d, and chronic spontaneous epileptic discharges began 2 weeks after injection. However, the GCD did not appear to result from increased ...Discoveries should aid research into cause of ALS
... ALS is a progressive paralytic disorder caused by degeneration of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. The cause and development (pathogenesis) of the fatal disease are not known, and there is no effective treatment. Fifteen years ago, an international consortium led by Teepu Siddique, M.D., Les Turner AL...New gene reduces retinal degeneration in fruit flies
...ations in this new gene greatly reduce the retinal degeneration caused by a different mutant. They named this new gene Lazaro after the novel Lazarillo de Tormes, in which the orphan boy Lzaro helps a blind man see. Of the molecules known to control TRP channels, a key player is diacylglycerol, known as DAG. DAG ...Bone and cartilage growth to blame for heart valve disease
...ue observations indicate that the process of valve degeneration is instead an active process, linked to inflammation and cellular growth, that shares similar risk factors to hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis). says Robert Bonow, MD, co-director of the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. This suggests that ...Fish oil may help protect against retinal degenerative diseases
... the early clinical manifestations of most retinal degeneration precedes massive photoreceptor cell death, it is important to define the initial crucial events," notes Dr. Bazan. "This knowledge might be applicable to the design of novel therapeutic interventions to halt or slow disease progression."...'Prosthetic' retinal cells let blind mice see light
...to restore vision in humans with inherited retinal degeneration disorders. For one thing, they said, they have not...f inner retinal neurons triggered by photoreceptor degeneration has raised some concerns for the retinal-based rescue strategy after the death of photoreceptors," w...Hopes raised for effectiveness of multiple sclerosis drug
...recurring occasionally or progressing quickly into degeneration of all motor functions that control muscles, strength, vision and balance. The very progressive form of the disease can end in death. Scientists have long thought that in MS the specific white cells (T-cells) that fight off infection actually turn on...New tools developed for studying neurodegenerative brain disorders
... of beads--the same morphology observed during the degeneration of actual neurons. Surprisingly, the model reprodu...agues have made a specific model of serotonin-axon degeneration using a chemical neurotoxin. Evidence of serotonin axon damage, including beading and pearling, was...MIT research holds promise for Huntington's treatment
...like "inclusions." The disease is characterized by degeneration in the striatum, an area associated with motor and learning functions, and the cortex. The proteins may disrupt the function of cellular structures known as proteasomes, which perform a "trash can" function for the cell -- disposing of cellular prote...New genetic discovery explains 74 percent cases of age-related macular degeneration
...rly three out of four cases of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a devastating eye disease that affects more...ked by a progressive loss of central vision due to degeneration of the macula--a region of the retina and the area responsible for fine, central vision....Mutation in brain cells of descendants of Abraham Lincoln suggest he suffered from movement disorder
...ton's disease (HD), a genetic disorder that causes degeneration of brain cells in certain areas of the brain, resulting in uncontrolled movements, loss of intellectual abilities and emotional disturbance. In addition, disruption of protein transport through the long arms of nerves called axons occurs in Alzheimer...