Blockade of fat hormone helps halt and heal multiple sclerosis
...al autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in mice the animal model of human multiple sclerosis (MS). In their study appearing online on January 12 in advance of print publication in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Giuseppe Matarese and colleagues from Universit di Napoli "Fede...Mayo collaboration identifies gene in childhood kidney disease
...s expertise in polycystic disease genetics with an animal model characterized in Indiana: a rat that mimicked PKD but that also showed symptoms of abnormal brain development. These clinical characteristics linked to a gene made this a useful model for an atypical form of PKD. The researchers identified the ...Visual research seeks to cut through clutter
...ith a horn top - and then asking people to find an animal amidst the clutter. "This didn't present a problem to those we tested," she says. "Most didn't even notice that the lamp shade had a light bulb base. They just looked for the animal." What does this mean for the airport baggage screener searching fo...In the mind's eye: How the brain makes a whole out of parts
...d, we can recognize whether something we see is an animal or not. Our results show that this immediate, rough impression probably depends on recognizing just one or more individual parts of what we see. Fine discriminations such as recognizing individual faces take longer to happen, and our study suggests...Stanford study of owls finds link in brain between sight and sound
... powerfully by the circuits that control where the animal is looking-the animal's direction of gaze. "The ability to hear and the direction of gaze aren't necessarily linked," said the paper's first author, postdoctoral scholar Daniel Winkowski, PhD. Sounds originating from any direction don't require visua...New compound stops brain cell degeneration in Alzheimer's disease
...ol. The efficacy and safety of the compound in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease was evaluated in coll...campus and protect against cognitive decline in an animal model. Neuron dysfunction can lead to further glia activation and contribute to further exacerbatio...Commonly used antidepressants may also affect human immune system
...and now the research team is working to produce an animal model that may help describe the precise nature of this interaction. "The novelty is that we reveal a potential communication, involving the transmitter serotonin, between immune cells that is normally only found between neurons," Ahern said. In addi...Mice studies illustrate potential of chimp/human antibodies to protect against smallpox
... the hybrid antibodies should be tested in another animal model for effectiveness against the monkeypox virus, which closely mirrors smallpox but is less virulent in humans. Currently, the smallpox virus exists in only two laboratories found in Atlanta, Georgia, and in Russia....Treatment of Down syndrome in mice restores nerve growth in cerebellum
...y of Sciences (PNAS). Reeves and his team used an animal model of DS called the Ts65Dn trisomic mouse to show that pre-nerve cells called granule cell precursors (GCP) fail to grow correctly in response to stimulation by a natural growth-triggering protein. This protein, called Sonic hedgehog (Shh), norma...Fitness counteracts cognitive decline from hormone-replacement therapy
...their findings in women were in line with previous animal studies that have found that estrogen and fitness have similar mechanisms in the brain. Estrogen and fitness both stimulate brain-derived neurotropic factor, a molecule tied to the production of capillaries, plasticity and neurons. These preliminary ...Study suggests statins can prevent sepsis in people with cardiovascular disease
...ing heart, lung, and kidney failure. Findings from animal studies suggest that statins might prevent sepsis but the effect in man has been unclear until now. Donald Redelmeier (Sunnybrook & Women's Hospital, Ontario, Canada) andcolleagues' analysed data from over 69,000 people, aged over 65 years, with card...Breast ducts: A new site for cancer treatment?
...g throughout the entire body. "We found that, in animal models, injecting chemotherapy into the milk ducts confines most of the drug to the breasts, leaving other tissues unharmed," says Sukumar. Building on observations made by her lab on rat models using drugs that block estrogen, Sukumar began tests ...JCI table of contents, January 26, 2006
...signals such as invading bacteria. Using a special animal model of MS known as the EAE mouse, Marco Prinz an...ity mediated by TLR9 modulates pathogenicity in an animal model of multiple sclerosis AUTHOR CONTACT: Marco Prinz, Georg-August-University, Gottingen, Germ...UNC nutrition researchers dispute claims that obesity problem is exaggerated
...ed the question of weight loss and mortality in an animal model. They showed that rats that were kept lean throughout their lives had the lowest mortality, and rats maintained at an obese weight had highest mortality." Animals that were obese and then made to lose weight had mortality comparable to the cons...It's in the genes: Study opens door to new treatment of the blues
... "This study is significant because it gives us an animal model of the disorder and opens up new areas of study." In the experiment, the researchers subjected mice to daily bouts of social threats and subordination by aggressive rodents and continuous sensory contact with the aggressors for 10 days. Afterwa...Anti-HIV drug has potential to prevent transmission in women
...mission of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), an animal virus that is very similar to HIV. Approximately 5 million people will be infected with HIV this year almost half of them women. Because the majority of new HIV infections occur via heterosexual intercourse, there is a need for new ways to prevent ...Team discovers possible 'universal strategy' to combat addiction
...cludes several years of further testing, including animal and, finally, human trials. "We have our peptide, but there's a long way to go before a clinical application," he says. "Dr. Zhang's research is important to our understanding of drug addiction. His work epitomizes how health research holds the key t...UCSF research pinpoints brain molecule's role in developing addiction
...ing 'heightened metabolic states,' such as when an animal is hungry. But when the animal is addicted to drugs of abuse, this motivational neural pathway is enhanced, resulting in increased ......e produced evidence of pain relief in experimental animal models as well as in a small group of human volunteers," said Ziskin. In addition to his work with low-intensity therapeutic waves, Ziskin consults with the Army and Air Force on the use of high-intensity millimeter waves for anti-terrorism purposes....UCLA finds cancer drug may improve progeria; genetic disease causes accelerated aging in children
...eated control mice. "This is the first study in an animal model to show that an FTI could be useful in treat... and we need to move forward with more research in animal models, and we need to move ahead with planning human studies," said Stephen Young, M.D., professor ...