Latest Chemical synapse Stories
Cultured cells in microfluidic chambers enable systematic experiments at the synapseIn order to be able to understand complex organs such as the brain or the nervous system, simplified model systems are required. A group of scientists led by the Frankfurt brain researcher Erin Schuman has successfully developed a novel method to grow cultured neurons in order to investigate basic mechanisms of memory. The researchers grew two separate populations of neurons in microfluidic platforms. These...
A cat can recognize a face faster and more efficiently than a supercomputer.That's one reason a feline brain is the model for a biologically-inspired computer project involving the University of Michigan.U-M computer engineer Wei Lu has taken a step toward developing this revolutionary type of machine that could be capable of learning and recognizing, as well as making more complex decisions and performing more tasks simultaneously than conventional computers can.Lu previously built a...
Durham, N.C. "“ Duke University Medical Center scientists crowded around a laser-powered microscope in a darkened room to peer into the brain of an anesthetized juvenile songbird right after he heard an adult tutors' song for the first time. Specifically, they wanted to see what happened to the connections between nerve cells, or synapses, in a part of the brain where the motor commands for song are thought to originate. In the first experiment of its kind, they employed high resolution...
A new study from The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital "“ The Neuro - at McGill University is the first to discover a molecular link between Parkinson's disease and defects in the ability of nerve cells to communicate. The study, published in the prestigious journal Molecular Cell and selected as Editor's Choice in the prominent journal Science, provides new insight into the mechanisms underlying Parkinson's disease, and could lead to innovative new therapeutic...
A fundamental function of neurons "“ key brain cells "“ is the release of hormones and chemicals called neurotransmitters that contain chemical messages.Until recently, experts were perplexed about the role of small proteins called complexins. Did they help or hinder the release of these important proteins?In a recent report, Baylor College of Medicine researchers answered the question. They do both, depending on the species in which they are active.A balance"The balance between...
Scientists at the Brain Research Centre and Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics have uncovered a key cellular mechanism that alters brain cell function in Huntington's disease, and identified a possible treatment for the disease.The results of the study were published online today and will appear in the January 28 edition of the journal Neuron.Huntington's disease is an inherited degenerative brain disease that causes cognitive and motor impairment, and eventually death. One in...
A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, in Germany, led by the Spanish physicist Rubén Fernández-Busnadiego, has managed to obtain 3D images of the vesicles and filaments involved in communication between neurons. The method is based on a novel technique in electron microscopy, which cools cells so quickly that their biological structures can be frozen while fully active."We used electron cryotomography, a new technique in microscopy based on ultra-fast...
2 major studies in 2 months make a new case for an old suspect in the mystery of how memory worksA second high-profile paper in as many months has found an important role in learning and memory for calpain, a molecule whose academic fortunes have ebbed and flowed for 25 years.USC's Michel Baudry (then at the University of California, Irvine) and Gary Lynch (UC Irvine) first pointed to calpain as the key to memory in a seminal 1984 paper in Science on the biochemistry of memory.In a paper...
Maturation disorders of nerve terminals may trigger autism; researchers in Heidelberg publish in the Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesFor brain cells to communicate, the contacts to each other must function. The protein molecule neuroligin-1 plays an important role in this as it stimulates the necessary maturation processes at the contact sites (synapses) of the nerves. A synaptic maturation disorder is possibly involved in the development of autism. Dr. Thomas Dresbach and his...
By combining a research technique that dates back 136 years with modern molecular genetics, a Johns Hopkins neuroscientist has been able to see how a mammal's brain shrewdly revisits and reuses the same molecular cues to control the complex design of its circuits.Details of the observation in lab mice, published Dec. 24 in Nature, reveal that semaphorin, a protein found in the developing nervous system that guides filament-like processes, called axons, from nerve cells to their appropriate...
