Neuroscientists at Duke University have mapped the timing and sequence of neural activations that unfold in the brain when people focus their attention on specific locations in their visual fields.
Estrogen regulates the brain’s energy metabolism in the same way as the hormone leptin, leading the way to a viable approach to tackling obesity in people resistant to leptin, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the Dec_31 online issue of Nature Medicine.
A University of Vermont study suggests that the astrocytic BK channel is an important participant in the cellular process responsible for signaling regional blood flow changes in the brain, providing a new key to understanding such disorders as stroke, migraine and Alzheimer’s disease.
Most genome sequencers are looking for genes inside living species to understand their function. But one genome project is deliberately searching for DNA sequences that are absent from species — perhaps because they are too dangerous to life to exist. The US team have developed software that calculates all the possible sequences of nucleotides and then scans sequence databases to identify sequences that aren’t present. They believe their results will have far-reaching applications.
The first human trial of a DNA vaccine designed to prevent H5N1 avian influenza infection began on December 21, 2006, when the vaccine was administered to the first volunteer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. Scientists from the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the NIH Institutes, designed the vaccine. The vaccine does not contain any infectious material from the influenza virus.
Uric acid is commonly associated with the excruciatingly painful joint disease known as gout, but it can also play a crucial role in the treatment of spinal cord injury and other central nervous system disorders, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, according to Rutgers’ Bonnie Firestein.
A gene known to be a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease puts out the welcome mat for the virus that causes cold sores, allowing the virus to be more active in the brain compared to other forms of the gene. The new findings, published online in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, add some scientific heft to the idea, long suspected by some scientists, that herpes somehow plays a role in bringing about Alzheimer’s disease.
A University of Virginia Health System researcher and colleagues have just published findings showing that just a few targeted counseling sessions had a notably positive impact on women at high risk for binge drinking, unplanned pregnancy and exposure to alcohol during pregnancy. The counseling technique, called motivational interviewing (MI), has proven effective after just four counseling sessions.
Researchers in the School of Dentistry at the University of Manchester have created a unique way of identifying osteoporosis sufferers from ordinary dental x-rays.
Infection with the human papilloma virus, the major cause of cervical cancer, is forever. The virus remains latent in skin cells, ready to flare up at any time to create warts on the skin or the genitals. A new finding by UC Berkeley’s Michael Botchan and colleagues offers hope that a drug can halt spread of the virus into new cells, and perhaps even eliminate the virus from the body.