Tag Archives: blood vessels

Researchers Confirm Original Blood Vessels in 80 Million-Year-Old Fossil

Researchers from North Carolina State University have confirmed that blood vessel-like structures found in an 80 million-year-old hadrosaur fossil are original to the animal, and not biofilm or other contaminants. Their findings add to the growing body of evidence that structures like blood vessels and cells can persist over millions of years, and the data not only confirm earlier reports of protein sequences in dinosaurs, they represent a significant advance in methodology. (more…)

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Discovery of heart’s repair process suggests potential new treatment strategy for heart attack

UCLA researchers have discovered that some scar-forming cells in the heart, known as fibroblasts, have the ability to become endothelial cells — the cells that form blood vessels. The finding could point the way toward a new strategy for treating people who have suffered a heart attack, because increasing the number of blood vessels in the heart boosts its ability to heal after injury. (more…)

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Researchers create coating material to prevent blood clots associated with implanted devices

A team of researchers from UCLA and the University of Michigan has developed a material that could help prevent blood clots associated with catheters, heart valves, vascular grafts and other implanted biomedical devices.

Blood clots at or near implanted devices are thought to occur when the flow of nitric oxide, a naturally occurring clot-preventing agent generated in the blood vessels, is cut off. When this occurs, the devices can fail. (more…)

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Marrow microenvironment

Research provides new insights into bone biology

Bone marrow, the spongy tissue inside long bones, produces new blood cells and helps the lymphatic system work properly.  But it may also turn out to be a progressively hostile microenvironment that induces vascular dysfunction and ossification, or hardening, of blood vessels.

Rhonda Prisby, who is using a rat model to study bone vascular physiology and morphology, was recently surprised when she used light microscopy to look at bone marrow vessels. (more…)

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Good Vibrations: Mediating Mood Through Brain Ultrasound

Ultrasound vibrations applied to the brain may affect mood, UA researchers have discovered. The finding potentially could lead to new treatments for psychological and psychiatric disorders.

University of Arizona researchers have found in a recent study that ultrasound waves applied to specific areas of the brain appear able to alter patients’ moods. The discovery has led the scientists to conduct further investigations with the hope that this technique could one day be used to treat conditions such as depression and anxiety.

Dr. Stuart Hameroff, professor emeritus of the UA’s departments of anesthesiology and psychology and director of the UA’s Center for Consciousness Studies, is lead author on the first clinical study of brain ultrasound, which was published in the journal Brain Stimulation. (more…)

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Multiple Sclerosis Study Reveals How Killer T Cells Learn to Recognize Nerve Fiber Insulators

Misguided killer T cells may be the missing link in sustained tissue damage in the brains and spines of people with multiple sclerosis, findings from the University of Washington reveal. Cytoxic T cells, also known as CD8+ T cells, are white blood cells that normally are in the body’s arsenal to fight disease.

Multiple sclerosis is characterized by inflamed lesions that damage the insulation surrounding nerve fibers and destroy the axons, electrical impulse conductors that look like long, branching projections. Affected nerves fail to transmit signals effectively. (more…)

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Bilirubin Can Prevent Damage from Cardiovascular Disease, MU Researchers Find

COLUMBIA, Mo. ­— Each year, about 610,000 Americans suffer their first heart attack, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Heart attacks and other symptoms of cardiovascular disease can be caused when blockage occurs in the arteries. In a new study from the University of Missouri, a scientist has discovered a natural defense against arterial blockage: bilirubin.

Bilirubin is typically something parents of newborns hear about when their children are diagnosed with jaundice. Generated during the body’s process to recycle worn-out red blood cells, bilirubin is metabolized by the liver and, usually, leaves the body harmlessly. (Many babies’ livers are not developed enough to metabolize the bilirubin, which results in the infants being diagnosed with jaundice, or high levels of bilirubin in their systems.) Now, MU scientists have found that bilirubin can be used to inhibit the clogging of arteries, and thus prevent the deadly consequences often experienced by individuals with cardiovascular disease. (more…)

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Common Antifungal Drug Decreases Tumor Growth and Shows Promise as Cancer Therapy

AUSTIN, Texas — An inexpensive antifungal drug, thiabendazole, slows tumor growth and shows promise as a chemotherapy for cancer. Scientists in the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin made this discovery by exploiting the evolutionary relatedness of yeast, frogs, mice and humans.

Thiabendazole is an FDA-approved, generic drug taken orally that has been in clinical use for 40 years as an antifungal. It is not currently used for cancer therapy.

Hye Ji Cha, Edward Marcotte, John Wallingford and colleagues found that the drug destroys newly established blood vessels, making it a “vascular disrupting agent.” Their research was published in the journal PLoS Biology. (more…)

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