Many neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that attacks the brain, causing a decline in mental ability that worsens over time. It is the most common form of dementia and accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. There is no current cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there are medications that can help ease the symptoms.
The Connectome and Connectomics: Seeking Neural Circuit Motifs
Talk Overview: The human brain is extremely complex with much greater structural and functional diversity than other organs and this complexity is determined both by one’s experiences and one’s genes. In Part 1 of his talk, Lichtman explains how mapping the connections in the brain (the connectome) may lead to a better understanding of brain function. Together with his colleagues, Lichtman has developed tools to label individual cells in the nervous system with different colors producing beautiful and revealing maps of the neuronal connections.
Using transgenic mice with differently colored, fluorescently labeled proteins in each neuron (Brainbow mice), Lichtman and his colleagues were able to follow the formation and destruction of neuromuscular junctions during mouse development. This work is the focus of Part 2.
In Part 3, Lichtman asks whether some day it might be possible to map all of the neural connections in the brain. He describes the technical advances that have allowed him and his colleagues to begin this endeavor as well as the enormous challenges to deciphering the brain connectome.
Speaker Bio: Jeff Lichtman’s interest in how specific neuronal connections are made and maintained began while he was a MD-PhD student at Washington University in Saint Louis. Lichtman remained at Washington University for nearly 30 years. In 2004, he moved to Harvard University where he is Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a member of the Center for Brain Science.
A major focus of Lichtman’s current research is to decode the map of all the neural connections in the brain. To this end, Lichtman and his colleagues have developed exciting new tools and techniques such as “Brainbow” mice and automated ultra thin tissue slicing machines.
CRISPR-Cas9 is a revolutionary gene editing tool that has wide spread implications for research, medical treatments, the environment, and ethics. In this pla…
January is National Glaucoma Awareness Month, which makes this a good time to learn more about treating this group of eye conditions.
About 3 million people in the U.S. have glaucoma, and it’s the second-leading cause of blindness worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Glaucoma is a group of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve, often due to abnormally high pressure in your eye. Elevated eye pressure is due to a buildup of the fluid that flows throughout the inside of your eye. When this fluid is overproduced or the drainage system doesn’t work properly, the fluid can’t flow out at its normal rate and eye pressure increases.
Photosynthetic bacteria that swarm the oceans could acquire beneficial genetic material using ‘tycheposons’.
An international team of researchers, led by Durham University in the UK, has uncovered previously unknown ways in which nature encodes biological information in a DNA
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a molecule composed of two long strands of nucleotides that coil around each other to form a double helix. It is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms that carries genetic instructions for development, functioning, growth, and reproduction. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).
In recent years, modern medicine has provided us with everything from new vaccines to protect us from deadly diseases through to groundbreaking cancer treatments. It’s provided us with hope on countless occasions – including back in 2011 when doctors unveiled a machine that could allow a human to live without a heart, one of the body’s most important organs.
Summary: A new stem cell therapy approach eliminates established brain tumors and provides long-term immunity, training the immune system to prevent cancer from returning.
Source: Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Scientists are harnessing a new way to turn cancer cells into potent, anti-cancer agents.
U.S. health regulators gave early approval to a new Alzheimer’s drug from Eisai Co. and Biogen Inc., the most promising to date in a new class of medicines that may help slow cognitive decline caused by the disease.
The Food and Drug Administration granted conditional approval to the drug, called lecanemab, based on an early study finding it reduced levels of a sticky protein called amyloid from the brains of people with early-stage Alzheimer’s. The companies will sell it under the brand name Leqembi.
You may have come home with it after a recent trip to New England. Or you may have gotten it from that friend or family member who flew in from New York over the holidays.
The newest Omicron subvariant of concern is XBB.1.5, and it has arrived in Southern California. This version of the coronavirus is more contagious and more resistant to existing immunity than any of its predecessors.
“It’s just the latest and greatest and most infectious variant,” said Paula Cannon, a virologist at USC. “It’s amazing to me that this virus keeps finding one more trick to make itself even more infectious, even more transmissible.”
