Tag Archives: alzheimer’s disease

The Search for the Earliest Signs of Alzheimer’s

By Guest PostMay 30, 2012Health, Sciencealzheimer's disease, alzheimers, azheimers patient, berkeley lab, beta amyloid, beta amyloid plaque, brain checkup, brain function, c 11 pib, city of berkeley, cognitive decline, computed tomography, ct scanner, dan krotz, destructive protein, earliest signs, functional mri scans, hippocampus atrophy, magnetic resonance imaging, mri scans, PET, pet image, positron emission tomography, radiotracer, william jagust

Berkeley Lab scientists help paint a more complicated picture of the devastating disease

For the past five years, volunteers from the City of Berkeley and surrounding areas have come to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to participate in an ongoing study that’s changing what scientists know about Alzheimer’s disease.

The volunteers, most over the age of 70, undergo what can best be described as a brain checkup. They’re asked to solve puzzles and memorize lists of words. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans image the structure of their brains in exquisite detail. Functional MRI scans allow scientists to watch portions of their brains light up as they form memories. And Positron emission tomography (PET) scans measure any accumulation of beta-amyloid, a destructive protein that’s a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. (more…)

UCLA Researchers Map Damaged Connections in Phineas Gage’s Brain

By Guest PostMay 18, 2012Science1848 case, alzheimer's disease, andrei irimia, arthur w toga, behavioral change, brain, brain disorder, carinna m torgerson, cerebral cortex, computed tomographic data, emotional function, famous case, frontal temporal dementia, gage skull, history, human connectome project, jack van horn, laboratory, limbic structure, loni, mark wheeler, micah c chambers, microscopic links, model, myelin sheath, nerve fibers, neuro imaging, neurons, neuroscience, phineas gage, railroad, rod, san francisco, skull, south america, trajectory, traumatic brain injury, vermont, white matter

Famous 1848 case of man who survived a terrible accident has modern parallel

Poor Phineas Gage. In 1848, the supervisor for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad in Vermont was using a 13-pound, 3-foot-7-inch rod to pack blasting powder into a rock when he triggered an explosion that drove the rod through his left cheek and out of the top of his head. As reported at the time, the rod was later found, “smeared with blood and brains.”

Miraculously, Gage lived, becoming the most famous case in the history of neuroscience — not only because he survived a horrific accident that led to the destruction of much of his left frontal lobe but also because of the injury’s reported effects on his personality and behavior, which were said to be profound. Gage went from being an affable 25-year-old to one that was fitful, irreverent and profane. His friends and acquaintances said he was “no longer Gage.” (more…)

Neuro Researchers Sharpen Our Understanding of Memories

By Guest PostMay 11, 2012Sciencealzheimer's disease, cells, chemical receptor, creb, excitatory neurons, israeli ran, jean claude lacaille, neurodegenerative disorder, neuron interconnection, synapses, understanding of memories, university of montreal

Scientists now have a better understanding of how precise memories are formed thanks to research led by Prof. Jean-Claude Lacaille of the University of Montreal’s Department of Physiology. “In terms of human applications, these findings could help us to better understand memory impairments in neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease,” Lacaille said. The study looks at the cells in our brains, or neurons, and how they work together as a group to form memories.

Chemical receptors at neuron interconnections called synapses enable these cells to form electrical networks that encode memories, and neurons are classified into two groups according to the type of chemical they produce: excitatory, who produce chemicals that increase communication between neurons, and inhibitory, who have the opposite effect, decreasing communication. “Scientists knew that inhibitory cells enable us to refine our memories, to make them specific to a precise set of information,” Lacaille explained. “Our findings explain for the first time how this happens at the molecular and cell levels.” (more…)

Molecular Spectroscopy Tracks Living Mammalian Cells in Real Time as They Differentiate

By Guest PostMay 2, 2012Scienceals, alzheimer's disease, amino acid residues, apoptosis, bacteria, berkeley lab, carbohydrates, cell change, cell death, children, diabetes, fibroblasts, fluorescent dyes, fourier transform infrared, ftir, function, hans bechtel, hoi ying, hyperspectromicroscopy, ir, kevin loutherback, liang chen, lipids, macular degeneration, michael martin, mitochondrial diseases, pc12, phosphorylation, phosphorylation process, power plant, protein, rafael gomez sjoberg, retina, san diego, serine, spectromicroscopy, threonine, tyrosine, ultraviolet, university of california, zhao hao

Berkeley Lab scientists demonstrate the promise of synchrotron infrared spectroscopy of living cells for medical applications

Knowing how a living cell works means knowing how the chemistry inside the cell changes as the functions of the cell change. Protein phosphorylation, for example, controls everything from cell proliferation to differentiation to metabolism to signaling, and even programmed cell death (apoptosis), in cells from bacteria to humans. It’s a chemical process that has long been intensively studied, not least in hopes of treating or eliminating a wide range of diseases. But until now the close-up view – watching phosphorylation work at the molecular level as individual cells change over time – has been impossible without damaging the cells or interfering with the very processes that are being examined.

“To look into phosphorylation, researchers have labeled specific phosphorylated proteins with antibodies that carry fluorescent dyes,” says Hoi-Ying Holman of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). “That gives you a great image, but you have to know exactly what to label before you can even begin.” (more…)

International Team Uncovers New Genes That Shape Brain Size, Intelligence

By Guest PostApril 16, 2012Scienceadenine, alzheimer's disease, arthur toga, australia, bad gene, barbara franke, bigger brain, bipolar disorder, brain size, brain study, centers, cytosine, dementia, depression, derrek hibar, disorder, DNA, Europe, gene, genetic variant, geneticist, guanine, hmga2, human gene, intelligence, iq test, jason stein, margaret wright, memory, mental illnesses, neda jahanshad, nick martin, North America, paul thompson, project enigma, rita cantor, rudy senstad, schizophrenia, thymine

*UCLA-launched partnership identifies genes that boost or lessen risk of brain atrophy, mental illness, Alzheimer’s disease*

In the world’s largest brain study to date, a team of more than 200 scientists from 100 institutions worldwide collaborated to map the human genes that boost or sabotage the brain’s resistance to a variety of mental illnesses and Alzheimer’s disease.

Published April 15 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Genetics, the study also uncovers new genes that may explain individual differences in brain size and intelligence. (more…)

Huntington’s Disease

By Guest PostApril 8, 2012Healthalzheimer's disease, amyloid fiber, amyloid seeding assay, asa, brain tissue, david w colby, fluorescent detector, hd, huntingtin, huntingtons disease, monomeric polyglutamine peptide, neurological disease, novel technology, prion disease, protein, sharad gupta, shyann jie, thioflavin t, university of delaware

UD researchers develop novel technique for early detection of misfolded protein

University of Delaware assistant professor David W. Colby is co-author of a paper in the March 23 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry that suggests protein misfolding may occur early in the pathogenesis, or development, of Huntington’s disease.

Huntington’s disease (HD) is one of several neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease or prion disease, associated with proteins that fold into abnormal structures. HD is characterized by progressive motor impairment, cognitive decline and behavioral abnormalities, and ultimately death. (more…)

Tuning out: How Brains Benefit From Meditation

By Guest PostNovember 26, 2011Health, Sciencealzheimer's disease, anxiety, areas of brain, autism, beta amyloid plaques, brain imaging study, cope with cancer, daydreaming, default mode network, experienced meditators, functional magnetic resonance imaging scans, health problems, hedy kober, how meditation works, jeremy r gray, judson a brewer, medial prefrontal, meditation, meditation techniques, patrick d worhunsky, posterior cingulate cortex, prevent psoriasis, psychiatric disorders, schizophrenia, switch off

Experienced meditators seem to be able switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, according to a new brain imaging study by Yale researchers.

Meditation’s ability to help people stay focused on the moment has been associated with increased happiness levels, said Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study published the week of Nov. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Understanding how meditation works will aid investigation into a host of diseases, he said. (more…)

Brain Rhythm Associated With Learning Also linked to Running Speed, UCLA Study Shows

By Guest PostJune 27, 2011Health, Sciencealzheimer's disease, brain as a large orchestra, brain oscillations, brain rhythm, concentration and learning, critical for learning and memory, from outer to inner space, gamma rhythm, hippocampus, keck center, language of the brain, mayank mehta, microelectrodes, microwires 20 times thinner than a human hair, neurophysics, physics and astronomy, plos one, post-traumatic stress, rhythms, running speed, syllables, ucla neurophysicists, university of california, zhiping chen

Rhythms in the brain that are associated with learning become stronger as the body moves faster, UCLA neurophysicists report in a new study.

The research team, led by professor Mayank Mehta, used specialized microelectrodes to monitor an electrical signal known as the gamma rhythm in the brains of mice. This signal is typically produced in a brain region called the hippocampus, which is critical for learning and memory, during periods of concentration and learning. (more…)