The secret lives, and deaths, of neurons

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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – As the human body fine-tunes its neurological wiring, nerve cells often must fix a faulty connection by amputating an axon — the "business end" of the neuron that sends electrical impulses to tissues or other neurons. It is a dance with death, however, because the molecular poison the neuron deploys to sever an axon could, if uncontained, kill the entire cell.

Researchers suggest boosting body's natural flu killers

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Jerusalem, May 13, 2013 – A known difficulty in fighting influenza (flu) is the ability of the flu viruses to mutate and thus evade various medications that were previously found to be effective. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have shown recently that another, more promising, approach is to focus on improving drugs that boost the body's natural flu killer system.

Depression common among children with temporal lobe epilepsy

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A new study determined that children and adolescents with seizures involving the temporal lobe are likely to have clinically significant behavioral problems and psychiatric illness, especially depression. Findings published in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), highlight the importance of routine psychiatric evaluation for pediatric epilepsy patients—particularly for those who do not respond to anti-seizure medications and require epilepsy surgery.

First successful treatment of pediatric cerebral palsy with autologous cord blood

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Second-generation TAVI device -- Lotus Valve -- shows good performance in REPRISE II

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22 May 2013, Paris, France: The Lotus Valve, a second-generation transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) device, was successfully implanted in all of the first 60 patients in results from REPRISE II reported at EuroPCR 2013, which showed good device performance and low mortality at 30 days.

Milwaukee-York researchers forward quest for quantum computing

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Research teams from UW-Milwaukee and the University of York investigating the properties of ultra-thin films of new materials are helping bring quantum computing one step closer to reality.

An on-going collaboration between physicists from York and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA, is focusing on understanding, tailoring and tuning the electronic properties of topological insulators (TI) - new materials with surfaces that host a quantum state of matter – at the nanoscale.

Breakthrough on Huntington's disease

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Researchers at Lund University have succeeded in preventing very early symptoms of Huntington's disease, depression and anxiety, by deactivating the mutated huntingtin protein in the brains of mice.

"We are the first to show that it is possible to prevent the depression symptoms of Huntington's disease by deactivating the diseased protein in nerve cell populations in the hypothalamus in the brain. This is hugely exciting and bears out our previous hypotheses", explains Åsa Petersén, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Lund University.

Biochemistry: Unspooling DNA from nucleosomal disks

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The tight wrapping of genomic DNA around nucleosomes in the cell nucleus makes it unavailable for gene expression. A team of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich now describes a mechanism that allows chromosomal DNA to be locally displaced from nucleosomes for transcription.

Anxious men fare worse during job interviews, study finds

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Nervous about that upcoming job interview? You might want to take steps to reduce your jitters, especially if you are a man.

People who are anxious perform more poorly in job interviews, and the effect is worse for men than women, according to new research from the University of Guelph.

"Most job applicants experience interview anxiety prior to and during interviews," said psychology professor Deborah Powell, who conducted the study with PhD student Amanda Feiler.

Regenerating spinal cord fibers may be treatment for stroke-related disabilities

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DETROIT – A study by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital found "substantial evidence" that a regenerative process involving damaged nerve fibers in the spinal cord could hold the key to better functional recovery by most stroke victims.

The findings may offer new hope to those who suffer stroke, the leading cause of long-term disability in adults. Although most stroke victims recover some ability to voluntarily use their hands and other body parts, about half are left with weakness on one side of their bodies, while a substantial number are permanently disabled.