Neurodegenerative diseases are a minefield of stigma, with lack of awareness resulting in damaging views, affecting diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. This stigma commonly leads to people isolating themselves from others for fear of being judged, worsening the progression of disease and removing key support networks. Rare diseases: Struggle For Awareness Fortunately, the stigma…
Author: Geoffrey Potjewyd
Key Autoimmune Disease Cells Within The Thymus Dynamically Change Over Time
The immune system plays a crucial role in both health and disease. From recovering from an infection to helping a wound heal, the immune system is always playing its part. Although irregular, excessive and ultimately damaging activation of the immune system can be a consequence of an autoimmune disease. There are many different autoimmune diseases…
Cell Therapy Instigates Neural Repair In Friedreich’s Ataxia Mice
A research group from Bristol (U.K) have established a potential cell therapy for Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA) which managed to aid motor coordination, stimulate neural repair and even start to reverse disease pathology in a FRDA mouse model. The group transplanted healthy mouse bone marrow cells into the genetically altered FRDA mice to elicit the reparative…
Catalpol Root Extract Gives Neurovascular Protection From Amyloid-Beta Peptides
A research team from Nanjing, China has discovered neuroprotective effects from catalpol, a root extract which has previously been shown to have anti-oxidative properties. The group created a blood-brain barrier in the lab and used amyloid-beta peptide to induce damage before treating the cells with catalpol. They established that catalpol protects brain endothelial cells from…
Biofabrication Of Brain-Microvessels From Stem Cells & ECM Proteins
A research team from Johns Hopkins University in the USA has recreated human brain microvessels within the lab. This is important as replicating brain-microvessels and the blood-brain barrier is crucial to studying both healthy function of brain blood vessels and the function and mechanisms of this in disease. Multiple diseases affect the blood vessels of…
Simulated Vascular Stiffness Promotes Alzheimer’s Disease Burden In The Lab
Alzheimer’s disease has a complex and faceted set of disease mechanisms. Although it is typically defined as a disease which affects the neurons of the brain, it has become increasingly apparent that the disease also affects the vasculature of the brain in Alzheimer’s progression. The ‘dual hit’ hypothesis suggests that damage to the brains vasculature…
Increasing Anti-aging Klotho With CRISPR Gene-Editing
Gene-editing technologies have brought about a wealth of opportunities for medical research and treatment of diseases. The CRISPR-dCas9 (CRISPR) technique has been extremely popular in recent times, owing to the specificity, simplicity and cost-effectiveness of gene-editing enabled by the technique. This has been utilised in animal models and cell lines to produce tools for researching…
Albuminuria Increases Alzheimer’s Disease & Vascular Dementia Risk
Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia both are, respectively, the first and second most common neurodegenerative diseases. Although dementia is a massive global issue, the actual mechanisms causing these diseases are relatively unknown with multiple diseases increasing the risk of developing a dementia. A recent study has established a link between albuminuria and both Alzheimer’s disease…
Neural and Vascular Interactions Regulate Brain Blood Vessel Growth
Blood flow – and the vasculature which enables this – is of critical importance to most tissues and organs of the body. The health and stability of vasculature in the brain are particularly crucial to general health and cognition, with the brain consuming 20% of cardiac output despite only making up 2% of the body’s…