A team of scientists at the University of California, Davis, and the University of Auckland has discovered that neuroglobin may protect against Alzheimer's disease by preventing brain neurons from dying in response to natural stress.

Mutations that cause Parkinson's disease prevent cells from destroying defective mitochondria, according to a study published online May 10 in the Journal of Cell Biology.

International research teams has shown that parts of the genetic programs that determine programmed cell death in plants and animals are actually evolutionarily related and moreover function in a similar way.

Mitochondria are restless, continually merging and splitting. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the size of these organelles depends on more than fusion and fission, as Berman et al. show. Mitochondrial growth and degradation are also part of the equation.

A new study suggests that Parkin, the product of the Parkinson's disease-related gene Park2, prompts neuronal survival by clearing the cell of its damaged mitochondria.