Latest Chemical synapse Stories
Quite early in its development, the mammalian brain has all the raw materials on hand to forge complex neural networks. But forming the connections that make these intricate networks so exquisitely functional is a process that occurs one synapse at a time. An important question for neuroscience has been: how exactly do stable synapses form? How do nerve cells of particular types know which of their cortical neighbors to "synapse" with, and which to leave out of their emerging networks?...
An inhibitory drug reverses seizure damage to neurologic pathways in rats About half of newborns who have seizures go on to have long-term intellectual and memory deficits and cognitive disorders such as autism, but why this occurs has been unknown. In the December 14 Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston detail how early-life seizures disrupt normal brain development, and show in a rat model that it might be possible to reverse this pathology by giving certain...
An inhibitory drug reverses seizure damage to neurologic pathways in rats BOSTON, Dec. 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- About half of newborns who have seizures go on to have long-term intellectual and memory deficits and cognitive disorders such as autism, but why this occurs has been unknown. In the December 14 Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston detail how early-life seizures disrupt normal brain development, and show in a rat model that it...
Although many mental illnesses are uniquely human, animals sometimes exhibit abnormal behaviors similar to those seen in humans with psychological disorders. Such behaviors are called endophenotypes. Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have found that mice lacking a gene that encodes a particular protein found in the synapses of the brain display a number of endophenotypes associated with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders. The new findings appear...
Scientists from the University of Wisconsin have successfully had implanted neurons, created in laboratory conditions, connect with the brains of mice and both send and receive signals. In research published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), lead author Jason P. Weick and associates Yan Liu and Su-Chun Zhang describe how they were able to take blank slate human embryonic stem cells (hESC), turn them into neurons, implant them into the brains of...
Like a gardener who stakes some plants and weeds out others, the brain is constantly building networks of synapses, while pruning out redundant or unneeded synapses. Researchers at The Jackson Laboratory led by Assistant Professor Zhong-wei Zhang, Ph.D., have discovered a factor in synapse-building, also showing that the building and pruning processes occur independent of each other. Mammals are born with functioning but not-yet-developed brains. After birth, external stimuli and internal...
Can the nerve signaling inhibitor tomosyn help retain long-term memory? A new study by two University of Illinois at Chicago biologists points to the link. Findings by Janet Richmond and David Featherstone, both professors of biological sciences at UIC, are reported in the Oct. 31 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This is the first really comprehensive effort to look at the role of tomosyn in fly learning," said Richmond, who until now studied...
OPHN1 is found to be essential for mGluR-dependent long-term depression at synapses Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have solved part of a puzzle concerning the relationship between changes in the strength of synapses – the tiny gaps across which nerve cells in the brain communicate – and dysfunctions in neural circuits that have been linked with drug addiction, mental retardation and other cognitive disorders. A team led by CSHL Professor Linda Van Aelst has...
An ongoing lack of sleep during adolescence could lead to more than dragging, foggy teens, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study suggests. Researchers have found that short-term sleep restriction in adolescent mice prevented the balanced growth and depletion of brain synapses, connections between nerve cells where communication occurs. "One possible implication of our study is that if you lose too much sleep during adolescence, especially chronically, there may be lasting consequences...
Research gives insight into 50-year-old mystery -- zinc important for learning and memory Zinc plays a critical role in regulating how neurons communicate with one another, and could affect how memories form and how we learn. The new research, in the current issue of Neuron, was authored by Xiao-an Zhang, now a chemistry professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), and colleagues at MIT and Duke University. Researchers have been trying to pin down the role of zinc in the...
