Tampa, Fla. (July. 11, 2011) – A study published in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (20:5) investigating optimal routes for transplanting neural stem/progenitor cells (NS/PCs) in animal models of spinal cord injury (SCI) has demonstrated that intralesional (IL) injection conferred benefits over intravenous injection (IV) and intrathecal (IT) injection. The study, by a team of Keio University (Japan) researchers, is now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/ .
Brain
The Ohio residential correctional programs – halfway houses and community-based correctional facilities – that are most successful at reducing recidivism among offenders enjoy an impressive track record.
Milan, Italy, 11 July 2011 – Although out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are typically associated with migraine, epilepsy and psychopathology, they are quite common in healthy and psychologically normal individuals as well. However, they are poorly understood. A new study, published in the July 2011 issue of Elsevier's Cortex, has linked these experiences to neural instabilities in the brain's temporal lobes and to errors in the body's sense of itself – even in non clinical populations.
Advances in research into Alzheimer's disease: transporter proteins at the blood CSF barrier and vitamin D may help prevent amyloid β build up in the brain
Advancing age is a major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease and is associated with build- up of the peptide amyloid β in the brain. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Fluids and Barriers of the CNS shows that removal of amyloid β from the brain depends on vitamin D and also on an age-related alteration in the production of transporter proteins which move amyloid β in and out of the brain.
EMBARGOED UNTIL 12P.M. EST, Friday, July 8, 2011, Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic researchers have identified a cellular pathway that cancer stem cells use to promote tumor growth in malignant glioma, an aggressive brain tumor. The research – published in the July 8 issue of Cell – also found that existing medications block this cancer-promoting pathway and delay glioma growth in animal models, suggesting a new treatment option for these often fatal brain tumors.
BOSTON – As any student who's had to study for multiple exams can tell you, trying to learn two different sets of facts one after another is challenging. As you study for the physics exam, almost inevitably some of the information for the history exam is forgotten. It's been widely believed that this interference between memories develops because the brain simply doesn't have the capacity necessary to process both memories in quick succession. But is this truly the case?
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Oh, the challenges of being a neuron, responsible for essential things like muscle contraction, gland secretion and sensitivity to touch, sound and light, yet constantly bombarded with signals from here, there and everywhere.
How on earth are busy nerve cells supposed to pick out and respond to relevant signals amidst all that information overload?
Scientists have shed light on why it is easier to learn about things related to what we already know than it is to learn about unfamiliar things, according to a new study.
The team says this is a paradox, as very different things are arguably more novel, yet adding to what we already know is so much easier.
Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Tokyo have found that building on existing knowledge activates a key set of genes in the brain.
Is your kid a "dove" – cautious and submissive when confronting new environments, or perhaps you have a "hawk" – bold and assertive in unfamiliar settings?
These basic temperamental patterns are linked to opposite hormonal responses to stress – differences that may provide children with advantages for navigating threatening environments, researchers report in a study published online July 8, 2011, in Development and Psychopathology.
Foxp2, a gene involved in speech and language, helps regulate the wiring of neurons in the brain, according to a study which will be published on July 7th in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. The researchers identified this functional link by first identifying the major targets of Foxp2 in developing brain tissue and then analysing the function of relevant neurons.
In the late 1990s, Jane Anderson was working as a landscape architect. That meant she didn't work much in the winter, and she struggled with seasonal affective disorder in the dreary Minnesota winter months. She decided to try meditation and noticed a change within a month. "My experience was a sense of calmness, of better ability to regulate my emotions," she says.
"Our visual system is tuned towards perceiving other people. We spend so much time doing that—seeing who they are, what they are doing, what they intend to do," says psychology professor Nikolaus F. Troje of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
This process is called biological motion perception, and humans are so good at it that even a few dots on a screen representing the major joints of a body are enough to retrieve all the information we need—as long as they move.
Lesions to the brain or spinal cord rarely heal fully, which leads to permanent functional impairment. After injury to the central nervous system (CNS), neurons are lost and largely replaced by a scar often referred to as the glial scar based on its abundance of supporting glial cells. Although this process has been known to science for over a century, the function of the scar tissue has long been disputed. However, there are indications that it stabilizes the tissue and that it inhibits the re-growth of damaged nerve fibres.
LA JOLLA, CA - Researchers at the Salk Institute have been able to genetically incorporate "unnatural" amino acids, such as those emitting green fluorescence, into neural stem cells, which then differentiate into brain neurons with the incandescent "tag" intact.