Latest Neurogenesis Stories

One of the most common causes of disability in young adults is spinal cord injury. Currently, there is no proven reparative treatment. Hope that neural stem cells (NSCs) might be of benefit to individuals with severe spinal cord injury has now been provided by the work of a team of researchers, led by Kinichi Nakashima, at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, in a mouse model of this devastating condition.In the study, mice with severe spinal cord injury were transplanted with...

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- BrainCells Inc. today announced that it has signed an agreement with Proximagen Group to acquire sabcomeline, a clinical-stage muscarinic partial agonist that has potential in the treatment of various psychiatric and neurologic disorders. Under the terms of the agreement, BrainCells will pay Proximagen an upfront fee and development and sales milestone payments together worth up to $51 million, as well as a royalty on sales, for worldwide development and...

A combination of nutrients called NT-020 promoted adult neural stem cell proliferation in aged rats and boosted their memory performance, reported University of South Florida researchers studying natural therapeutic approaches to promoting the health of neurons in the aging brain. Researchers from the USF Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair tested two groups of aged laboratory rats; one group received NT-020 and another, the control group, did not. In the NT-020 group, the process by...

Scientists have identified a chemical that makes new neurons grow. The substance works specifically in a part of the brain that is integral to learning and memory.The discovery, made after researchers systematically and painstakingly infused each of 1,000 different chemicals into the brains of live mice, could point the way to a new type of neuroprotective drug for people with Alzheimer's or other neurodegenerative diseases, according to the report in the July 9th issue of the journal Cell, a...

NIH grantees eye neuroprotective mechanism for Alzheimer'sScientists have discovered a compound that restores the capacity to form new memories in aging rats, likely by improving the survival of newborn neurons in the brain's memory hub. The research, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, has turned up clues to a neuroprotective mechanism that could lead to a treatment for Alzheimer's disease."This neuroprotective compound, called P7C3, holds special promise because of its...

Stem cells in the brain remain dormant until called upon to divide and make more neurons. However, little has been known about the molecular guards that keep them quiet. Now scientists from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified the signal that prevents stem cells from proliferating, protecting the brain against too much cell division and ensuring a pool of neural stem cells that lasts a lifetime.The research, which was published in the July 1 issue of Cell Stem Cell,...

Tel Aviv University research is inventing a tool to control the risk of 'runaway' stem cellsStem cell research holds promise for improving the quality of human life "• especially embryonic stem cells, which can potentially develop into any tissue in the human body. However, basic scientific problems still remain unresolved "“"“ but Tel Aviv University researchers are leading the way to inventive solutions."In order to use embryonic stem cells as a reliable and safe therapeutic...

UCI study provides blueprint for enhanced treatment of inflammatory diseases like MSBy discovering how adult neural stem cells navigate to injury sites in the central nervous system, UC Irvine researchers have helped solve a puzzle in the creation of stem cell-based treatments: How do these cells know where to go?Tom Lane and Kevin Carbajal of the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center found the answer with the body's immune system.Their study not only identifies an important...

UCSF scientists have discovered a new stem cell in the developing human brain. The cell produces nerve cells that help form the neocortex "“ the site of higher cognitive function"”and likely accounts for the dramatic expansion of the region in the lineages that lead to man, the researchers say. Future studies of these cells are expected to shed light on developmental diseases such as autism and schizophrenia and malformations of brain development, including microcephaly, lissencephaly and...

Findings could shed light on the evolution of human head sizeIn work that may one day correct or prevent genetic conditions tied to smaller-than-normal brains and shed light on the evolution of human head size, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory analyzed the interaction of two proteins key to brain development.Neurogenesis is the process through which neurons are created during prenatal development to populate the growing brain. Li-Huei Tsai, director of the...