Latest Neural development Stories
Discovery provides clues to development of neurological diseases and cancer Researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered a startling feature of early brain development that helps to explain how complex neuron wiring patterns are programmed using just a handful of critical genes. The findings, published February 3 in Cell, may help scientists develop new therapies for neurological disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and provide insight into certain cancers. The...
A new study combines genetic and neurobiological approaches to confirm that synaptic mutations increase the risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) A new study combines genetic and neurobiological approaches to confirm that synaptic mutations increase the risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). It also highlights a role for modifier genes in these disorders. Published in PLoS Genetics, this research was conducted by researchers at the Institut Pasteur, the Paris Diderot University, the...
From a new study in Biological Psychiatry A significant obstacle to progress in understanding psychiatric disorders is the difficulty in obtaining living brain tissue for study so that disease processes can be studied directly. Recent advances in basic cellular neuroscience now suggest that, for some purposes, cultured neural stem cells may be studied in order to research psychiatric disease mechanisms. But where can one obtain these cells outside of the brain? Increasingly,...
A new study finds that low concentrations of the chemical methylisothiazolinone has subtle but measurable negative effects on the neural development of tadpoles. The chemical is found in some cosmetics, although the study does not provide any evidence that cosmetics are unsafe for humans. Scientists, health officials, and manufacturers already know that a chemical preservative found in some products, including cosmetics, is harmful to people and animals in high concentrations, but a new...
FINDINGS: Whitehead Institute scientists have identified conserved, long intervening non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) that play key roles during brain development in zebrafish, and went on to show that the human versions of these RNAs can substitute for the zebrafish lincRNAs. RELEVANCE: Despite their prevalence in the cell, lincRNAs have been referred to as the "dark matter" of all the transcribed RNAs because little is known of their functions or mechanisms. Until now, lincRNAs have been...
KIT Biologists Supply Major Results for Understanding the Thalamus, the “Relay Center” of the Brain The thalamus is the central translator in the brain: Specialized nerve cells (neurons) receive information from the sensory organs, process it, and transmit it deep into the brain. Researchers from the Institute of Toxicology and Genetics (ITG) of KIT have now identified the genetic factors Lhx2 and Lhx9 responsible for the development of these neurons. Their results contribute to...
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...
Significant progress has been made in understanding the genetic risk factors underlying psychiatric disease. Recent studies have identified common genetic mutations conferring modest risk and rare variants comprising significant risk. One example of a rare cause of psychiatric disorders is the Disrupted in Schizophrenia-1 (DISC1) gene, first identified in a large Scottish pedigree displaying schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression. Common variants in DISC1 have been associated with...
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...
New research may help to explain why the location of postnatal neural stem cells in the brain determines the type of new neurons that are generated. The research, published by Cell Press in the July 28 issue of the journal Neuron, demonstrates that a signaling pathway which plays a key role in development also actively regulates the fate of neural stem cells in the adult brain. Manipulation of this signaling pathway redirected the fate of adult stem cells, a finding that may impact the design...
