Neurodegeneration

Defective cellular waste removal explains why Gaucher patients often develop Parkinson's disease

Gaucher disease causes debilitating and sometimes fatal neurodegeneration in early childhood. Recent studies have uncovered a link between the mutations responsible for Gaucher disease and an increased risk ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders created May 23, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Signs of motor disorders can appear years before disease manifestation

It is known that signs of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease can appear years before the disease becomes manifest; these signs take the form of subtle changes in the brain and behavior of ...

Neuroscience created May 22, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Reducing caloric intake delays nerve cell loss

Activating an enzyme known to play a role in the anti-aging benefits of calorie restriction delays the loss of brain cells and preserves cognitive function in mice, according to a study published in the May ...

Neuroscience created May 21, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Finding a family for a pair of orphan receptors in the brain

Researchers at Emory University have identified a protein that stimulates a pair of "orphan receptors" found in the brain, solving a long-standing biological puzzle and possibly leading to future treatments for neurological ...

Medical research created May 21, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Leading researchers report on the elusive search for biomarkers in Huntington's disease

While Huntington's disease (HD) is currently incurable, the HD research community anticipates that new disease-modifying therapies in development may slow or minimize disease progression. The success of HD research depends ...

Neuroscience created May 20, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Researchers discover a missing link in signals contributing to neurodegeneration

In many neurodegenerative diseases the neurons of the brain are over-stimulated and this leads to their destruction. After many failed attempts and much scepticism this process was finally shown last year to be a possible ...

Neuroscience created May 09, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Discovery helps explain how children develop rare, fatal disease

One of 100,000 children is born with Menkes disease, a genetic disorder that affects the body's ability to properly absorb copper from food and leads to neurodegeneration, seizures, impaired movement, stunted ...

Medical research created Apr 30, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Structure that edits messenger RNA transcripts defective in two different forms of motor neuron diseases

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) are degenerative motor neuron diseases in which the key mutated genes are involved in RNA metabolism. This similarity suggests that a ...

Medical research created Apr 26, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

New research examines connection between inflammatory stimulus and Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive degenerative disease affecting a person's ability to coordinate and control their muscle movement. What starts out as a tremor in a finger will eventually lead to difficulty in writing ...

Parkinson's & Movement disorders created Apr 23, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Structural dynamics underlying memory in aging brains

(Medical Xpress)—When the brains of those who have succumbed to age-related neurodegeneration are analyzed post-mortem, they typically show significant atrophy on all scales. Not only is the cortex thinner ...

Neuroscience created Apr 17, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Researchers discover new treatment possibilities for Lou Gehrig's disease

(Medical Xpress)—A team led by Dr. Alex Parker, a professor of pathology and cellular biology and a researcher at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM), has identified an important ...

Neuroscience created Apr 17, 2013 | popularity 2.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Cholesterol increases risk of Alzheimer's and heart disease

Researchers at the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome and the University of Colorado School of Medicine have found that a single mechanism may underlie the damaging effect of cholesterol on the brain and on blood vessels.

Medical research created Apr 15, 2013 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists learn what makes nerve cells so strong

How do nerve cells—which can each be up to three feet long in humans—keep from rupturing or falling apart?

Neuroscience created Apr 15, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

'Strikingly similar' brains of man and fly may aid mental health research

A new study by scientists at King's College London and the University of Arizona (UA) published in Science reveals the deep similarities in how the brain regulates behaviour in arthropods (such as flies ...

Neuroscience created Apr 11, 2013 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Fatheads: How neurons protect themselves against excess fat

We're all fatheads. That is, our brain cells are packed with fat molecules, more of them than almost any other cell type. Still, if the brain cells' fat content gets too high, they'll be in trouble. In a recent study in mice, ...

Medical research created Apr 08, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast


Neurodegeneration is the umbrella term for the progressive loss of structure or function of neurons, including death of neurons. Many neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s occur as a result of neurodegenerative processes. As research progresses, many similarities appear which relate these diseases to one another on a sub-cellular level. Discovering these similarities offers hope for therapeutic advances that could ameliorate many diseases simultaneously. There are many parallels between different neurodegenerative disorders including atypical protein assemblies as well as induced cell death. Neurodegeneration can be found in many different levels of neuronal circuitry ranging from molecular to systemic.

This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

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