Brain

CSIRO scientists have developed a new system to screen for compounds that can inhibit one of the processes that takes place during the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

In a paper published in the latest edition of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, folate is shown to be beneficial in the screening system.

Researchers and students from St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center and Arizona State University's Math Department are applying weather forecast technology to model and track the growth patterns of brain tumors.

The technology allows researchers to study various growth patterns of brain tumors and apply treatment parameters to determine the best option for patients. It will forecast how a patient's tumor may grow with different treatment scenarios, help physicians make a much more informed prognosis and be used as a patient consulting tool.

Michael J. Tarr, a Brown University scientist, and graduate student Adrian Nestor have discovered this color difference in an analysis of dozens of faces. They determined that men tend to have more reddish skin and greenish skin is more common for women.

The finding has important implications in cognitive science research, such as the study of face perception. But the information also has a number of potential industry or consumer applications in areas such as facial recognition technology, advertising, and studies of how and why women apply makeup.

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Advance toward early diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonarydiseaseJournal of Proteome Research

Researchers in Finland are reporting identification of the first potential "biomarker" that could be used in development of a sputum test for early detection of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). That condition, which causes severe difficulty in breathing — most often in cigarette smokers — affects 12 million people in the United States.

Canadian researchers have identified protein biomarkers that shed new light on the development of two severe and debilitating forms of malaria.

The findings may let doctors detect earlier two crippling malaria variations – one that develops in the placenta of pregnant women affecting countless unborn children, the other, cerebral malaria, that develops in the brain's blood vessels – malaria's most deadly form.

(SAN FRANCISCO, December 6, 2008) – A study assessing the quality of care for patients with sickle cell disease in a variety of hospital settings will be presented at a press conference on Saturday, December 6, at 9:30 a.m., during the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology in San Francisco, CA. Two other studies on screening methods that help determine stroke risk in children with sickle cell disease, as well as a study examining the effects of long-term hydroxyurea use in adult patients with the disease, will also be presented.

Screening with an ultrasound machine has proved highly successful in preventing stroke among children with sickle cell disease, by identifying children who are then preventively treated with blood transfusions. Over an eight-year period at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, researchers found that the technique, transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (TCD), along with regular transfusions for children found to be at high risk, reduced stroke to one-tenth of the incidence found before TCD was introduced.

A worldwide group of scientists has created an infectious prion disease in a mouse model, in a step that may help unravel the mystery of this progressive disease that affects the nervous system in humans and animals. The research team, including Christina J. Sigurdson, D.V.M., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, also discovered that changing the structure of the prion protein by altering just two nucleic acids leads to a fatal neurological disorder in mice.

Researchers at the Babraham Institute near Cambridge, supported by the Alzheimer's Research Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), have discovered that the brain's circuitry survives longer than previously thought in diseases of ageing such as Alzheimer's disease. The findings were published today in the journal Brain.

WASHINGTON, DC—On Tuesday, November 25, 2008, the Obesity Institute at Children's National Medical Center gathered experts from many disciplines to share ideas, failures and successes, and the future promise of prevention and intervention strategies to fight childhood obesity, both in the District of Columbia and nationwide.

Scientists have discovered that management efforts intended to assist migrations of salmon and steelhead trout can have unintended consequences for fish populations. Juveniles that are transported downstream on boats can lose the ability to migrate back to their breeding grounds, reducing their survivorship and altering adaptations in the wild.

Canadian researchers announce the discovery of MEDNIK, a debilitating genetic syndrome, in a study published December 5 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. The team demonstrates that this syndrome is caused by a newly found mutation in the human AP1S1 gene.

Dr. Patrick Cossette and his team discovered MEDNIK syndrome in a group of families in Quebec that share a common ancestor. The syndrome is characterized by mental retardation, enteropathy, deafness, peripheral neuropathy, ichthyosis, and keratodermia (MEDNIK).

New therapies for some forms of epilepsy may soon be possible, thanks to a discovery made by a team of University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute neuroscience researchers.

The researchers found that hemichannels - the same channels the researchers previously found to that cause cell death following a stroke - may also cause epileptic seizures that occur following head trauma or a stroke.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the Scripps Research Institute have found novel prion infectivity in white and brown fat tissues of mice. The study appears December 5 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.

Canadian researchers announce the discovery of MEDNIK, a debilitating genetic syndrome, in a study published December 5 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. The team demonstrates that this syndrome is caused by a newly found mutation in the human AP1S1 gene.

Dr. Patrick Cossette and his team discovered MEDNIK syndrome in a group of families in Quebec that share a common ancestor. The syndrome is characterized by mental retardation, enteropathy, deafness, peripheral neuropathy, ichthyosis, and keratodermia (MEDNIK).