Connecting You to Tomorrow's Biotechnology Innovations
When recovering from a brain injury, getting back in the swing of things may be more effective than a prolonged period of rest, according to a new Columbia study in mice. These findings offer a compelling example of the brain’s remarkable capacity to adapt in response to trauma. They also point to new, activity-centered treatment […]
Combination immunotherapy shrank melanoma that has spread to the brain in more than half of the patients in a clinical trial reported in the New England Journal of Medicine led by an investigator at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Of 94 patients in the single-arm study combining checkpoint inhibitors ipilimumab and nivolumab, at […]
A University of Adelaide-led team of scientists has suggested a potential link between iron in our cells and the rare gene mutations that cause Alzheimer’s disease, which could provide new avenues for future research. In a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, the team proposes a new theory for how rare gene mutations cause Alzheimer’s […]
Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified a peptide that could lead to the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The discovery, published in Nature Communications, may also provide a means of homing drugs to diseased areas of the brain to treat AD, Parkinson’s disease, as well as glioblastoma, brain injuries […]
While immune cells called neutrophils are known to act as infantry in the body’s war on germs, a National Institutes of Health-funded study suggests they can act as medics as well. By studying rodents, researchers showed that instead of attacking germs, some neutrophils may help heal the brain after an intracerebral hemorrhage, a form of […]
A team of biologists has found an unexpected source for the brain’s development, a finding that offers new insights into the building of the nervous system. The research, which appears in the journal Science, discovered that glia, a collection of non-neuronal cells that had long been regarded as passive support cells, in fact are vital […]
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a slowly developing neurodegenerative condition typical of athletes involved in contact sports. This was evidenced in a recent study in which nearly every former NFL player whose brain was investigated had suffered from CTE. The findings released this week were part of a study conducted by two leading medical institutions devoted […]
A new study in mice reveals that eosinophils, a type of disease-fighting white blood cell, appear to be at least partly responsible for the progression of heart muscle inflammation to heart failure in mice. In a report on the findings, published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine on March 16, researchers found that while eosinophils […]
Pregnancy involves radical hormone surges and biological adaptations, but the effects on the brain are still unknown. In this study a team of researchers compared the structure of the brain of women before and after their first pregnancy. This is the first research to show that pregnancy involves long-lasting changes – at least for two […]
Electrocranial stimulation offers hope for Alzheimer’s patients Funding for clinical trials of a new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has been announced by the Weston Brain Institute. Dr. Zahra Moussavi, Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, is receiving $1,737,960 for her project on investigating the efficacy of high-frequency rTMS treatment for […]
A team at the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre (CSC), based at Imperial College London, has found an important part of the machinery that switches on a gene known to protect against Alzheimer’s Disease. Working in collaboration with scientists at the Hong Kong University (HKU) and the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, CSC associate professor Richard Festenstein […]
People with high levels of four biomarkers in the blood may be more likely to develop a stroke than people with low levels of the biomarkers, according to a study published in the August 24, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Identifying people who are at risk […]
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who studies the most common genetic intellectual disability has used an experimental drug to reverse — in mice — damage from the mutation that causes the syndrome. The condition, called fragile X, has devastating effects on intellectual abilities. Fragile X affects one boy in 4,000 and one girl in 7,000. […]
Studying a new type of pinhead-size, lab-grown brain made with technology first suggested by three high school students, Johns Hopkins researchers have confirmed a key way in which Zika virus causes microcephaly and other damage in fetal brains: by infecting specialized stem cells that build its outer layer, the cortex. The lab-grown mini-brains, which researchers […]