Tag Archives: brown university

Mystery of the mutant polyomavirus

By Guest PostJuly 7, 2013Health, Scienceaaron derdowski, astrocytes, bethany ohara, brain glial cells, brown university, carbohydrate, crystal structure, DNA, gretchen gee, infectious, jc polyomavirus, lstc, luisa ströh, melissa maginnis, mutant form, mutant polyomavirus, myelin, mystery, non infection, oligodendrocytes, pathogen, pml, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, thilo stehle, university of tübingen, ursula neu, vanderbilt university, virus, walter atwood, wild type, xray crystallography

A new study shows that common mutant forms of the deadly JC polyomavirus are not responsible for the pathogen’s main attack, which causes a brain-damaging disease in immunocompromised patients called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. But that finding raises the ominous question of what the mutants might be up to instead.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The JC polyomavirus is clearly opportunistic. It infects half the population but lethally destroys brain tissue only in immunocompromised patients — and it may be outright sneaky, too. Even as a new research paper allays fears that common mutant forms of the virus are the ones directly responsible for the disease’s main attack, that same finding raises new questions about what the mutants are doing instead. (more…)

The rhythm of everything

By Guest PostJune 21, 2013General, Health, Scienceadolescents, approximately a day, automobile accidents, blood pressure, body temperature, breast cancer rates, brown university, cancer epidemiology, chronic insomnia, chronobiology international, circa diem, circadian cycle, circadian gene, circadian rhythms, clock, DNA, electric lights, epigenetic changes, estrogen level, feedback loop, habitual fatigue, heart rate, human body, jet lag, key issue, kidneys, logic, molecular autoregulatory, mutation, mysterious, natural processes, physiological phenomena, probably carcinogenic, regulatory genes, rhythm of everything. biological changes, richard g stevens, scientists, seasonal affective disorder, transcriptional activators, ultraviolet light, winter blues, yong zhu

Dawn triggers basic biological changes in the waking human body. As the sun rises, so does heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. The liver, the kidneys and many natural processes also begin shifting from idle into high gear. Then as daylight wanes and darkness descends, these processes likewise begin to subside, returning to their lowest levels again as we sleep.

These internal biological patterns are tightly linked to an external cosmic pattern: the earth’s rotation around the sun once every 24 hours. This endless loop of light and darkness and the corresponding synchrony of internal and external clocks, are called circadian rhythms, from “circa diem,” Latin for “approximately a day.” Circadian rhythms influence almost all living organisms, from bacteria to algae, insects, birds and, as is increasingly understood by science, humans beings. (more…)

Advance in tuberous sclerosis brain science

By Guest PostJune 19, 2013Healthautism, behavioral symptoms, bettina voelcker, brain science, brown university, catherine browning, catherine thorne, diagnose, disease causing mutations, elizabeth normand, emily murphy, healthy, intellectual disabilities, mark zervas, mice, mtor, mtor pathway, mutant neurons, seizures, shane crandall, thalamic neurons, thalamus, thalamus cells, threshold, tsc, tsc like symptoms, tsc1, tuberous sclerosis, tuberous sclerosis complex

By manipulating the timing of disease-causing mutations in the brains of developing mice, Brown University researchers have found that early genetic deletions in the thalamus may play an important role in course and severity of the developmental disease tuberous sclerosis complex. Findings appear in the journal Neuron.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Doctors often diagnose tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) based on the abnormal growths the genetic disease causes in organs around the body. Those overt anatomical structures, however, belie the microscopic and mysterious neurological differences behind the disease’s troublesome behavioral symptoms: autism, intellectual disabilities, and seizures. In a new study in mice, Brown University researchers highlight a role for a brain region called the thalamus and show that the timing of gene mutation during thalamus development makes a huge difference in the severity of the disease. (more…)

Brainwaves reflect ability to beat built-in bias

By Guest PostJune 13, 2013Scienceactivity, behavior, brain science, brainwaves, brown institute, brown university, cognitive control, eeg scalp monitors, genetic, humans, ian eisenberg, james cavanagh, marc guitart masip, michael frank, neurological roots, obsessive compulsive disorder, pavlovian bias, prefrontal cortex, psychological factors, quentin huys, situational factors, specific brain activity, symbols, university college london, university of zurich, vertebrates

Many animals, including humans, harbor ingrained biases to act when they can obtain rewards and to remain inactive to avoid punishment. Sometimes, however those biases can steer us wrong. A new study finds that theta brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex predicts how well people can overcome these biases when a better choice are available.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Vertebrates are predisposed to act to gain rewards and to lie low to avoid punishment. Try to teach chickens to back away from food in order to obtain it, and you’ll fail, as researchers did in 1986. But humans are better thinkers than chickens. In the May 8 edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers show that the level of theta brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex predicts whether people will be able to overcome these ingrained biases when doing so is required to achieve a goal. (more…)

A tangle of talents untangles neurons

By Guest PostJune 10, 2013Sciencebiological phenomenon, brain science, brown university, cell cultures, cristina lopez fagundo, diane hoffman kim, jennifer mitchel, microfabrication facility, mike cohea, nerve cells, neurons, puerto rico, rat neural tissue, schwann cells, semiconductor, substrates, talisha ramchal, tangle of talents, techniques, technological ingenuity, topography, university, yu ting dingle

Brown’s growing programs in brain science and engineering come together in the lab of Diane Hoffman-Kim. In a recent paper, her group employed techniques ranging from semiconductor-style circuit patterning to rat cell culture to optimize the growth of nerve cells for applications such as reconstructive surgery.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Two wrongs don’t make a right, they say, but here’s how one tangle can straighten out another.

Diane Hoffman-Kim, associate professor of medicine in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology, is an affiliate of both Brown’s Center for Biomedical Engineering and the Brown Institute for Brain Science. Every thread of expertise woven through those multidisciplinary titles mattered in the Hoffman-Kim lab’s most recent paper, led by graduate student Cristina Lopez-Fagundo. (more…)

Above other awards: the pride of publication

By Guest PostMay 22, 2013Scienceangel byrd, brown university, candida albicans, China, clumping behavior, courtney johnson, cr3, DNA, dna like spiderman, ecm, ecm protein fibronectin, eli lilly, extracellular matrix, fungal pathogens, gates millennium scholarship, gene expression, hiv patients, immune system cells, jonathan reichner, liz lavigne, neutrophils, pathology in washington, paul kubes, phd student, publication, receptor on neutrophils, rhode island hospital, tendril like hyphae, tougaloo college, united states, xian obrien

Dedicated, passionate and energetic, M.D./Ph.D. student Angel Byrd has earned many accolades and research opportunities. But she only recently won a young scientist’s most coveted prize: publication as lead author of a paper highly esteemed by her colleagues.

Well on her way to fulfilling her dreams both in research and medicine, Brown University M.D./Ph.D. student Angel Byrd nevertheless had recently begun to define herself by what was missing, said her adviser, Dr. Jonathan Reichner, associate professor of surgery (research) at Rhode Island Hospital. She still wasn’t a published author.

For years she had dedicated herself to studying how immune system cells capture invading fungal pathogens. Like those cells, called neutrophils, she had seized on seemingly every opportunity that had come her way. (more…)

Development in Brazil: Double cropping helps Brazil’s development

By Guest PostMay 16, 2013Environmentagricultural revolution, amazon region, brazilian government, brown university, dan mahr, deforestation, development in brazil, double cropping, economic data, final product, gdp, geological sciences, land use changes, leah vanwey, mato grosso, money, NASA, per capita income, public sanitation, rebecca de sa, research, rural brazilians, stephanie spera, terra satellite

It’s not just about agriculture. Growing two crops a year in the same field improves schools, helps advance public sanitation, raises median income, and creates jobs.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — New research finds that double cropping — planting two crops in a field in the same year — is associated with positive signs of economic development for rural Brazilians.

The research focused the state of Mato Grosso, the epicenter of an agricultural revolution that has made Brazil one of the world’s top producers of soybeans, corn, cotton, and other staple crops. That Brazil has become an agricultural powerhouse over the last decade or so is clear. What has been less clear is who is reaping the economic rewards of that agricultural intensification — average Brazilians or wealthy landowners and outside investors. (more…)

How some leaves got fat: It’s the veins

By Guest PostMay 10, 2013Nature2d veins, 3d arrangements, brown university, cross section, dry climate plant, efficient photosynthesis, erika edwards, evolution, evolutionary history, hydraulic path lengths, hydraulics for photosynthesis, leaf vein structure, leaf veins, matt ogburn, molluginaceae, monica arakaki, national science foundation, plump leaves, portulacineae, some plants, succulents, third dimension, venation

Some plants, such as succulents, have managed to grow very plump leaves. For that to happen, according to a new study in Current Biology, plants had to evolve 3-D arrangements of their leaf veins in order to maintain adequately efficient hydraulics for photosynthesis.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A garden variety leaf is a broad, flat structure, but if the garden happens to be somewhere arid, it probably includes succulent plants with plump leaves full of precious water. Fat leaves did not emerge in the plant world easily. A new Brown University study published in Current Biology reports that to sustain efficient photosynthesis, they required a fundamental remodeling of leaf vein structure: the addition of a third dimension. (more…)