Human Model of Huntington’s Disease Created from Skin’s Stem Cells
‘HD in a dish’ will facilitate search for elusive treatment. An international consortium of Huntington’s disease experts, including several from the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at UC Irvine, has generated a human model of the deadly inherited disorder directly from the skin cells of affected patients. The re-created neurons, which live [...]
Finding Brings Scientists One Step Closer to Parkinson’s Drug
Long-term aim is to develop new treatments to block the spread of damaged proteins in the brain. Van Andel Institute announces that researchers at Lund University in Sweden have published a study detailing how Parkinson’s disease spreads through the brain. Experiments in rat models uncover a process previously used to explain mad cow disease, in [...]
New Compound Holds Promise for Treating Duchenne MD and Other Inherited Diseases
RTC 13 effectively counteracts ‘nonsense’ mutation that causes disorder. Scientists at UCLA have identified a new compound that could treat certain types of genetic disorders in muscles. It is a big first step in what they hope will lead to human clinical trials for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or DMD, is a degenerative [...]
Nerve Pathway for Combating Axon Injury and Stress May Hold Benefits for Individuals With Neurodegenerative Disorders
Researchers from the Huck Institutes’ Center for Cellular Dynamics, led by Center director Melissa Rolls, have found that a neuroprotective pathway initiated in response to injured or stressed neural axons serves to stabilize and protect the nerve cell against further degeneration. Neurons, or nerve cells, typically have a single axon that transmits signals to other [...]
Brain Scans Detect Early Signs of Autism
A new study shows significant differences in brain development in high-risk infants who develop autism starting as early as age 6 months. The findings published in the American Journal of Psychiatry reveal that this abnormal brain development may be detected before the appearance of autism symptoms in an infant’s first year of life. Autism is [...]
Researchers Show Neural Fingerprints of Memory Associations
Researchers have long been interested in discovering the ways that human brains represent thoughts through a complex interplay of electrical signals. Recent improvements in brain recording and statistical methods have given researchers unprecedented insight into the physical processes underlying thoughts. For example, researchers have begun to show that it is possible to use brain recordings [...]
New Candidate Drug Stops Cancer Cells and Regenerates Nerve Cells
Scientists have developed a small-molecule-inhibiting drug that in early laboratory cell tests stopped breast cancer cells from spreading and also promoted the growth of early nerve cells called neurites. Researchers from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center report their findings online June 21 in Chemistry & Biology. The scientists named their lead drug candidate “Rhosin” and [...]
Gene Mutations Cause Massive Brain Asymmetry
Discovery could help lead to prevention of radical surgery in rare childhood disease. Hemimegalencephaly is a rare but dramatic condition in which the brain grows asymmetrically, with one hemisphere becoming massively enlarged. Though frequently diagnosed in children with severe epilepsy, the cause of hemimegalencephaly is unknown and current treatment is radical: surgical removal of some [...]
Study Uncovers New Tools for Targeting Genes Linked to Autism
UCLA researchers have combined two tools — gene expression and the use of peripheral blood — to expand scientists’ arsenal of methods for pinpointing genes that play a role in autism. Published in the June 21 online edition of the American Journal of Human Genetics, the findings could help scientists zero in on genes that [...]
Proposed Drug May Reverse Huntington’s Disease Symptoms
Single treatment produces long-term improvement in animal models. With a single drug treatment, researchers at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine can silence the mutated gene responsible for Huntington’s disease, slowing and partially reversing progression of the fatal neurodegenerative disorder in animal models. The findings [...]
