Modern technology helps shed light on illnesses in artists of the past
...time, researchers have discovered that significant retinal dysfunction occurs when high levels of the medication are consumed. Today, physicians are likely to diagnose a case of digoxin toxicity if a patient reports "yellow vision," also known as xanthopsia. Van Gogh's fondness for yellow may also have been ...Figuring out the ups and downsand sidewaysof neural development
...a role in spindle orientation. Studying developing retinal tissue of embryonic rats, they observed that the p...acking mInsc activity, they also observed abnormal retinal development, apparently because of a continued division that favors proliferating progenitor cells. ...The unfolding of amyloid's true colors
...cation. The researchers isolated melanosomes from retinal pigment epithelium and were surprised to find the organelle loaded with fibrillar amyloids of the glycoprotein Pme117, a critical player in the formation of melanosomes. During the formation of melanosomes, Pme117 lyses into two fragments, one call...Light-sensing cells in retina develop before vision
... in the mouse retina, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) are active and functioning...ld should help us learn a lot more about how these retinal ganglion cells influence all kinds of non-visual functions and reinforce the fact that the eye is re...Chemical signaling helps regulate sensory map formation in the brain
...p of axons the projections that grow out from the retinal neurons and into the brain. The wandering axons use these signals to locate their destinations in the map. Twenty years later, in 1983, Alfred Gierer developed computational models of this process. His models indicated that at least two counterbalan...JCI table of contents: January 12, 2006
...OLOGY Insights from a mouse model of degenerative retinal disease are a sight for sore eyes Choroideremia i... within the thin layer at the rear of the eye (the retinal pigment epithelium, RPE), and the choroid (a layer filled with blood vessels that nourish the retina...Scientists link another gene to degenerative blindness
... crucial step forward in the ongoing fight against retinal degeneration. Working with fruit flies, the scient...d holds the key to finding treatments for not only retinal degenerative diseases but also other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's an...Advancing the biomedical frontier: Experimental Biology 2006
...es), the "$6 billion (hu) man (from bionic arms to retinal prostheses); fetal origins of adult diseases; and the biological basis of aging, among other topics. AAA keynote speaker, Dr. Judah Folkman, will discuss a new platelet biomarker to detect occurrence or recurrence of breast and other cancers years be...A case of mistaken molecular identity
...micry can also upset the delicate machinery inside retinal cells. Levin and his team found that antibodies geared to attack T. cruzi also block rhodopsin, a molecule that converts light into electrical impulses sent to the brain. "Rhodopsin takes light and transforms it that's its function," said Levin. To ...'Looking' at Eyeless from two directions
... hundreds of genes predicted to be targets of this retinal network," said Mardon. "This has opened the door to determining what are the critical targets of this gene for eye development. Others can use similar methods to do the same thing." Eventually, he said, the technique could be used to identify genes t...NYU scientists ID key factor in how fruit fly color receptor cells 'decide' their type
...pineless as the key regulator for establishing the retinal mosaic when expressed during the fruit flies' mid-pupation stage. For fruit flies in which the spineless gene could not be expressed, all of the R7 photoreceptors and most R8 receptors were "pale"; for flies for which there was an overexpression of ...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...ems at work. Ruthazer et al. watched the growth of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in albino tadpoles, whereas Meyer and Smith used zebrafish. Both authors expressed cytosolic dsRED (discosoma red fluorescent protein) and GFP (green fluorescent protein)-tagged synaptophysin (SYP) in selected RGCs, allowing the...Beyond 'blur': Image quality shapes eye growth, but limited criteria apply
...In general, the eye grows in an effort to keep the retinal image in good focus. In findings reported this week, researchers investigated which aspects of retinal images are used by this feedback system. They found that among the numerous image qualities that con...'Prosthetic' retinal cells let blind mice see light
...thway to restoring vision in people with inherited retinal degeneration, researchers have engineered cells in...d a gene for a light-sensitive protein into "inner retinal neurons" in a strain of mice with photoreceptor deficiency that resembles the defect in such inherit...Fish oil may help protect against retinal degenerative diseases
...protective factors may be the close association of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells and the amount of d..."Because the early clinical manifestations of most retinal degeneration precedes massive photoreceptor cell death, it is important to define the initial crucia...Blind mice recover visual responses using protein from green algae
...ed the light-absorbing protein ChR2 into the mouse retinal cells that survived after the rods and cones had d...uture." In addition to RP, there are many forms of retinal degenerative eye diseases that possibly could be treated by gene-based therapies. The researchers d...New gene reduces retinal degeneration in fruit flies
...at alterations 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...New groundbreaking findings in taste, smell and chemical irritation
... color blind fish as well as fish that demonstrate retinal degenerations resembling human diseases. Other behaviors can also be elicited in zebrafish and hold promise for genetic analysis. Special Symposium -- Industry and academic scientists nose to nose (and in impeccable taste) -- Flavor and fragrance...Even at small scales, the big decisions are made at the water cooler
...lliam Bialek and his research team have found that retinal ganglion cells, the nerve cells along the back of ...the brain as a whole." Under observation, even two retinal cells located right next to each other seem to be marching to different drummers rather than being c...... the loss of activity of a gene critical to normal retinal development , according to results of a study by i...ests that Rb and p107 compensate for each other in retinal progenitor cells and prevent the deregulated proliferation of the cells that leads to retinoblastoma...