Latest Chemical synapse Stories
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...
The brain learns through changes in the strength of its synapses -- the connections between neurons -- in response to stimuli. Now, in a discovery that challenges conventional wisdom on the brain mechanisms of learning, UCLA neuro-physicists have found there is an optimal brain "rhythm," or frequency, for changing synaptic strength. And further, like stations on a radio dial, each synapse is tuned to a different optimal frequency for learning. The findings, which provide a grand-unified...
Nicolas G. Bazan, MD, Ph.D, Boyd Professor and Director of the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, and David Stark, an MD/Ph.D student working in his lab, have discovered how a key chemical neurotransmitter that interacts with two receptors in the brain promotes either normal function or a disease process -- determining whether brain cells live or die. The work is published and highlighted in the September 28, 2011 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience....
Researchers working with adult mice have discovered that learning and memory were profoundly affected when they altered the amounts of a certain protein in specific parts of the mammals' brains. The protein, called kibra, was linked in previous studies in humans to memory and protection against late-onset Alzheimer's disease. The new work in mice, reported in the Sept. 22 issue of Neuron, shows that kibra is an essential part of a complex of proteins that control the sculpting of brain...
The crystal structure of the dynamin protein — one of the molecular machines that makes cells work — has been revealed, bringing insights into a class of molecules with a wide influence on health and disease. "It's a really cool structure," said Jodi Nunnari, professor and chair of molecular and cellular biology at UC Davis and senior author of the paper, to be published Sept. 18 in the journal Nature. "This is a really important class of molecules for regulating membrane dynamics."...
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new tool allows scientists to see the immune system like never before. The device, a stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscope, provides sharp images at extremely small scales. It shows how granules from natural killer cells pass through openings in dynamic cell structures to destroy tumor cells and cells infected by viruses. "This new technology enables researchers to see individual elements previously below the physical limits of imaging using light,"...
The mechanism which adjusts how to receive a signal in coordination with dendritic morphology has been revealed Neurons in the brain play a role as an electric wire conveying an electrical signal. Because this electric wire is connected with various joints (synapse), various brain functions can occur. A neuron which has dendritic trees on it, receives the signals with many synapses located on those dendritic trees, and carries out functions by combining the received signals. The research...
Excitation and inhibition remain balanced, even when the brain undergoes reorganization Every second, the brain's nerve cells exchange many billions of synaptic impulses. Two kinds of synapses ensure that this flow of data is regulated: Excitatory synapses relay information from one cell to the next, while inhibitory synapses restrict the flow of information. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried could now show, in cooperation with colleagues from the Ruhr...
A fundamental new discovery about how nerve cells in the brain store and release tiny sacs filled with chemicals may radically alter the way scientists think about neurotransmission – the electrical signaling in the brain that enables everything from the way we move, to how we remember and sense the world. According to the scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) who conducted the research, the discovery doesn’t change the players involved so much as it reveals...
New findings explain rapid signal transmission in eye's initial response to lightA scientist from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute has determined how a particular gene makes night vision possible.The study, which was published in the August 10, 2011 edition of The Journal of Neuroscience, focuses on a gene called nyctalopin. Mutations in the gene result in inherited "night blindness," a loss of vision in low-light environments."Until now, our understanding...
