Latest Dendrite Stories

Fifty years after it was originally discovered, scientists at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research have elucidated the function of a microscopic network of tubules found in neurons. This structure modulates the strength of connections between two neurons, thereby contributing to our ability to learn and to adapt to new situations.For neurobiologist Thomas Oertner of the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, which is part of the Novartis Research Foundation,...

In the brain, many types of synaptic proteins are spatio-temporally regulated to maintain synaptic activity at a constant level. Here, the Japanese research group led by Professor Masaki Fukata, Drs. Yuko Fukata and Jun Noritake in National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Japan, found that two types of palmitoylating enzymes finely-tune the location and function of a major synaptic protein, PSD-95, in different ways. They also found that this mechanism contributes to keeping synaptic...

U.S. scientists have determined a protein called neuroligin, implicated in some forms of autism, is critical to the construction of a working synapse. University of California-Davis researchers said they not only discovered neuroligin locks neurons together like molecular Velcro, but they obtained images that are the first to show two neurons coming together, using neuroligin to construct a new synapse. Previous research has suggested that neuroligin is critical for the formation and...

A protein called neuroligin that is implicated in some forms of autism is critical to the construction of a working synapse, locking neurons together like "molecular Velcro," a study lead by a team of UC Davis researchers has found.Published online in the June issue of the journal Neural Development, the study is accompanied by groundbreaking images that are the first to show two neurons coming together using neuroligin to construct a new synapse."Previous research has suggested that...

Proteins go everywhere in the cell and do all sorts of work, but a fundamental question has eluded biologists: How do the proteins know where to go?"There's no little man sitting there, putting the protein in the right place," said Don Arnold, a molecular and computational biologist at USC College."Proteins have to have in them encoded information that tells them where to go in the cell."In a study appearing online this week in Nature Neuroscience, Arnold and collaborators solve the mystery...

Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: When Abraham Lincoln was asked how long a man's legs should be, he absurdly replied, "Long enough to reach the ground." Now, by using a new microscopy technique to watch the growth of individual neurons in the microscopic roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, Rockefeller University researchers are turning another deceptively simple question on its head. They asked, "How long should a worm's neurons be?" And the worms fired back, "Long enough to reach...

Cegedim Dendrite announced today a more efficient, automated approach for pharmaceutical companies to market their brands to managed care organizations, hospitals and government institutions. Promoting drug brands to these key accounts is crucial because more than 90 percent of all prescription drugs pass through the nation's managed care organizations. Today, most of these interactions are managed manually, with key account teams taking a "paper and pencil" approach with little or no...

AUSTIN, Texas--Neurons experience large-scale changes across their dendrites during learning, say neuroscientists at The University of Texas at Austin in a new study that highlights the important role that these cell regions may play in the processes of learning and memory. The research, published online Oct. 23 and in the November issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, shows that ion channels distributed in the dendritic membrane change during a simulated learning task and that this...

NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Rutgers' Bonnie Firestein likens nerve cells to trees -- some are short and bushy with many branches while others are tall with a few branches coming out of one or two main trunks. Different branching patterns correlate with specific disorders and Firestein's quest is to discover how these dissimilar patterns come about and why. A new paper by Firestein and her colleagues at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, examines the role of the protein snapin...