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Brain cells, or neurons, constantly tinker with their circuit connections, a crucial feature that allows the brain to store and process information. While neurons frequently test out new potential partners through transient contacts, only a fraction of fledging junctions, called synapses, are selected to become permanent. The major criterion for […]

A new model developed at MIT can help predict if patients at risk for Alzheimer’s disease will experience clinically significant cognitive decline due to the disease, by predicting their cognition test scores up to two years in the future. The model could be used to improve the selection of candidate […]

We receive half of our genes from each biological parent, so there’s no avoiding inheriting a blend of characteristics from both. Yet, for single-celled organisms like bacteria that reproduce by splitting into two identical cells, injecting variety into the gene pool isn’t so easy. Random mutations add some diversity, but […]

The microtubule-binding protein tau in neurons of the central nervous system can misfold into filamentous aggregates under certain conditions. These filaments are found in many neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and progressive supranuclear palsy. Understanding the molecular structure and dynamics of tau fibrils is important […]

A stealthy new drug-delivery system disguises chemotherapeutics as fat in order to outsmart, penetrate and destroy tumors. Thinking the drugs are tasty fats, tumors invite the drug inside. Once there, the targeted drug activates, immediately suppressing tumor growth. The drug also is lower in toxicity than current chemotherapy drugs, leading […]

An international team of researchers led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified a pair of genes that influence risk for both late-onset and early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Most genes implicated thus far in Alzheimer’s affect neurons that transmit messages, allowing different regions of the […]

A crucial signaling pathway that can tell the immune system to fight off cancer can also be co-opted by cancer cells to put the brakes on the immune system, according to a new study from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Researchers say this increased understanding […]

Air pollution — especially ozone air pollution which is increasing with climate change — accelerates the progression of emphysema of the lung, according to a new study led by the University of Washington, Columbia University and the University at Buffalo. While previous studies have shown a clear connection of air pollutants with […]

Researchers have now obtained the long-sought after, resting-state structure of a voltage-gated sodium channel.  These types of channels in living cells form a voltage-regulated pore that allows rapid passage of positively charged sodium atoms across the cell membrane. This generates a tiny electrical signal. Electrical signals in nerve and muscle […]

Beta-amyloid plaques, the protein aggregates that form in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, disrupt many brain functions and can kill neurons. They can also damage the blood-brain barrier — the normally tight border that prevents harmful molecules in the bloodstream from entering the brain. MIT engineers have now developed a […]

In a nationwide study, researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of hundreds of participants in the National Institutes of Health’s Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) and found that intensively controlling a person’s blood pressure was more effective at slowing the accumulation of white matter lesions […]

Published in JAMA Network Openresearchers looked at six repeated bone scans from 6,389 children in Bristol’s Children of the 90s study between the ages of ten and 25 to assess if the timing of puberty had any influence on bone density throughout adolescence and into early adulthood. They found that […]

A new collaboration with an independent school in Menlo Park, Calif., is helping Stanford researchers better understand how different learning experiences drive changes in the brain. The Brainwave Learning Center at Synapse School brings together researchers, teachers and students to gain new insights into how young learners' brains transform as they acquire […]

Scientists studying a highly cancer-prone family have identified a rare, inherited gene mutation that dramatically raises the lifetime risk of pancreatic and other cancers. The discovery of the previously unknown mutation, reported in Nature Genetics by Harvard Medical School investigators at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, could lead to routine testing of individuals […]

Aided by a high-powered brain scanner and a 3D printer, NIH researchers peered inside the brains of hundreds of multiple sclerosis patients and found that dark rimmed spots representing ongoing, “smoldering” inflammation, called chronic active lesions, may be a hallmark of more aggressive and disabling forms of the disease. “We […]

Researchers and caregivers have noted that excessive daytime napping can develop long before the memory problems associated with Alzheimer’s disease begin to unfold. Prior studies have considered this excessive daytime napping to be compensation for poor nighttime sleep caused by Alzheimer’s-related disruptions in sleep-promoting brain regions, while others have argued that the […]

Rice University scientists have found a way to engineer a new kind of cell differentiation in bacteria, inspired by a naturally occurring process in stem cells. They have created a genetic circuit able to produce genetically distinguished cells of Escherichia coli as the bacterium divides. By controlling this process, it is possible […]

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia among the elderly, is characterized by plaques and tangles in the brain, with most efforts at finding a cure focused on these abnormal structures. But a University of California, Riverside, research team has identified alternate chemistry that could account for the various […]

Increasingly, Alzheimer’s disease research has focused on the preclinical stage, when people have biological evidence of Alzheimer’s but either no symptoms or minimal symptoms—the time when interventions might have the potential to prevent future decline of older adults. Harvard Medical School researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have shed new light on […]

People whose diets included high levels of vitamin A had a 17 percent reduction in risk for getting the second-most-common type of skin cancer, as compared to those who ate modest amounts of foods and supplements rich in vitamin A. That’s according to researchers from Brown University, who unearthed that […]

Glioblastoma is an aggressive form of brain cancer that infiltrates surrounding brain tissue, making it extremely difficult to treat with surgery. Even when chemotherapy and radiation successfully destroy the bulk of a patient’s glioblastoma cells, they may not affect the cancer stem cells. This small population of tumor cells have […]

Researchers have found a therapy to reduce the size of tumours where previous drugs have failed. Tumours develop from abnormal cells in the body that continue to grow forming lumps. These lumps can be benign, meaning they’re not harmful, or they can become malignant which leads to cancer. Malignant tumours, […]

Researchers at University of Washington and University of California, Los Angeles, have developed an artificial intelligence system that could help pathologists read biopsies more accurately, and lead to better detection and diagnosis of breast cancer. Doctors examine images of breast tissue biopsies to diagnose breast cancer. But the differences between […]

Growing evidence suggests that certain types of bacteria are capable of causing colorectal cancers, indicating that a sub-set of these cancers could be the result of infectious disease. But understanding how bacteria interact in the human gut – our microbiome – has been challenging because of the complex microbial mixture […]

Researchers from Northwestern University are using Argonne supercomputers to advance the development of an optical microscopy technique that can predict and quantify cancer risks at extremely early stages. The basic principle driving Allen Taflove’s computational electrodynamics research — which bears the potential to transform how we diagnose, and possibly treat, […]

You know you have a skeleton, but did you know that your cells have skeletons, too? Cellular skeletons, or cytoskeletons, are shapeshifting networks of tiny protein filaments, enabling cells to propel themselves, carry cargo, and divide. Now, an interdisciplinary team of Caltech researchers has designed a way to study and […]

Electromagnetic fields might help prevent some breast cancers from spreading to other parts of the body, new research has found. The study showed that low intensity electromagnetic fields hindered the mobility of specific breast cancer cells by preventing the formation of long, thin extensions at the edge of a migrating […]

A team of researchers from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), part of the National Institutes of Health, and collaborating academic research institutions developed a method to measure a type of gene mutation involved in the evolution of cancer. This type of mutation, called “repeat instability,” may be useful in […]

While the presence of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain may be a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, giving patients an amyloid PET scan is not an effective method for measuring their cognitive function, according to a new study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine and Thomas Jefferson University. The […]

Imagine standing in a lumberyard and being asked to build a house — without blueprints or instructions of any kind. The materials are all in front of you, but that doesn’t mean you have the first idea how to get from point A to point B. That was the situation […]