It’s a miracle of nature that amid many billions of similar cells in the brain and spinal cord, neurons can extend their tendrillous axons to exactly the right place to form connections. Otherwise, we wouldn’t move, sense or think properly, if at all. In a new study, researchers report a discovery that helps to explain…
Author: D.C.Demetre
Injectable Biogel Delivers Immunotherapy Agents Locally
A new injectable “biogel” is effective in delivering anti-cancer agents directly into cancerous tumours and killing them. The technology, developed by researchers at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM), has already been successfully tested in the laboratory. If it works in patients, the therapy could one day revolutionize treatment for many forms of…
Improving Fitness May Counteract Brain Atrophy In Older Adults
Older adults that improved their fitness through a moderate intensity exercise program increased the thickness of their brain’s cortex, the outer layer of the brain that typically atrophies with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study from the University of Maryland School of Public Health. The effects were found in both healthy older adults and…
Babies Have Logical Reasoning Before Age One
Human infants are capable of deductive problem solving as early as 10 months of age, a new study by psychologists at Emory University and Bucknell University finds. The research shows that babies can make transitive inferences about a social hierarchy of dominance. The researchers designed a non-verbal experiment using puppet characters. The experiment created scenarios…
Von Gierke Disease: Potential Treatment Approach Offers Hope
Researchers from the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore (Duke-NUS) and Duke Medicine have identified a potential treatment strategy for an often-fatal inherited glycogen storage disease. The study provides much-needed hope for the management of glycogen storage disease Ia, known as GSDIa or von Gierke disease, a genetic metabolic disorder that requires lifelong dietary therapy. Patients…
Gene Mutation Tied to Reckless Drunken Behavior
University of Helsinki researchers have identified a genetic mutation which renders carriers susceptible to particularly impulsive and reckless behavior when drunk. More than one hundred thousand Finns carry this mutation. Many Finns know somebody whose behavior becomes excessively strange and erratic when drunk. They are said to be unable to “hold their liquor,” and others…
Can These 16 Compounds Flag Ovarian Cancer Sooner?
Studying blood serum compounds of different molecular weights has led scientists to a set of biomarkers that could lead to a highly accurate screening test for early-stage ovarian cancer. Using advanced liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques coupled with machine learning computer algorithms, researchers have identified 16 metabolite compounds that provided unprecedented accuracy in distinguishing…
Short Winter Days Trigger Aggression Hormones Differently Based On Gender
A hormonal mechanism in hamsters that connects short winter days with increased aggression in females has been discovered by Indiana University researchers. They also found it differs from the mechanism that controls this same response in males. The work, which advances basic knowledge on the connection between certain sex hormones and aggression, could go on…
Repairing Injured Neurons With Optogenetics
Regeneration of injured neurons in living fish has been achieved by scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum München. To this end, they employed optogenetics, i.e. light-inducible protein activation. The nervous system is built to last a lifetime, but diverse diseases or environmental insults can overpower the capacity of neurons to maintain function or to repair after trauma.…