http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Korean scientists have used tiny stars, squares and triangles as a toolkit to create live neural circuits in a dish. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-triangles-neural-circuits-dish.html Neuroscience Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:00:02 EST news261932412 Researchers from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) at the University of Barcelona (UB) have coordinated a research into how the IDPN nitrile causes neurological syndromes similar to those of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a severe neuromuscular degenerative disease. The study, led by Jordi Llorens, has been recently published in Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology journal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-poisoning-industrial-compounds-similar-effects.html Neuroscience Tue, 17 Jul 2012 12:54:33 EST news261748463 (Medical Xpress) -- A receptor recently discovered to control the movement of immune cells across central nervous system barriers (including the blood-brain barrier) may hold the key to treating multiple sclerosis (MS), a neuroinflammatory disease of the central nervous system. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-receptor-key-multiple-sclerosis-treatment.html Immunology Mon, 11 Jun 2012 05:52:30 EST news258612716 Around 100 billion neurons in the human brain enable us to think, feel and act. They transmit electrical impulses to remote parts of the brain and body via long nerve fibres known as axons. This communication requires enormous amounts of energy, which the neurons are thought to generate from sugar. Axons are closely associated with glial cells which, on the one hand, surround them with an electrically insulating myelin sheath and, on the other hand support their long-term function. Klaus Armin and his research group from the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine in Göttingen have now discovered a possible mechanisms by which these glial cells in the brain can support their associated axons and keep them alive in the long term. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-glial-cells-nerve-fibres-energy-rich.html Medical research Thu, 10 May 2012 07:20:02 EST news255851227 A vast majority of cells in the brain are glial, yet our understanding of how they are generated, a process called gliogenesis, has remained enigmatic. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have identified a novel transcripitonal cascade that controls these formative stages of gliogenesis and answered the longstanding question of how glial cells are generated from neural stem cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-reveals-glial-cell.html Neuroscience Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:00:04 EST news253364034 American scientists believe a new procedure to repair severed nerves could result in patients recovering in days or weeks, rather than months or years. The team used a cellular mechanism similar to that used by many invertebrates to repair damage to nerve axons. Their results are published today in the Journal of Neuroscience Research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-procedure-severed-nerves-minutes-limb.html Neuroscience Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:48:49 EST news247470518 (Medical Xpress) -- In the event of the spinal cord injury, the long nerve cell filaments, the axons, may become severed. For quite some time now, scientists have been investigating whether these axons can be stimulated to regenerate. Such growth takes place on a scale of only a few millimetres. To date, changes like this could be determined only by cutting the tissue in question into wafer-thin slices and examining these under a microscope. However, the two-dimensional sections provide only an inaccurate picture of the spatial distribution and progression of the cells. Together with an international team, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Martinsried have now developed a new method by virtue of which single nerve cells can be both examined in intact tissue and portrayed in all three dimensions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-scientists-spinal-cord-transparent.html Medical research Mon, 26 Dec 2011 06:49:24 EST news244104498 High levels of tau protein in fluid bathing the brain are linked to poor recovery after head trauma, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Fondazione IRCCS Ca Granda-Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan, Italy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-high-tau-protein-linked-poor.html Neuroscience Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:19:02 EST news243015531 Researchers from the Department of Neurology at NYU Langone Medical Center identified for the first time that changes in the tissue located at the junction between the outer and inner layers of the brain, called "blurring", may be an important, non-invasive biomarker for earlier diagnosis and the development of new therapies for degenerative brain conditions, such as multiple sclerosis. The study was published in the Oct. 26th issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-neurologists-potential-biomarker-cognitive-decline.html Neuroscience Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:27:12 EST news239300820 When a motor nerve is severely damaged, people rarely recover full muscle strength and function. Neuroscientists from Children's Hospital Boston, combining patient data with observations in a mouse model, now show why. It's not that motor nerve fibers don't regrow -- they can -- but they don't grow fast enough. By the time they get to the muscle fibers, they can no longer communicate with them. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-reversing-motor-nerve-essence.html Medical research Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:00:05 EST news236861754 Scientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine found a way to rapidly produce pure populations of cells that grow into the protective myelin coating on nerves in mice. Their process opens a door to research and potential treatments for multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and other demyelinating diseases afflicting millions of people worldwide. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-mice-stem-cells-myelinating-trillions.html Medical research Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:22:37 EST news236175547 (Medical Xpress) -- Nerve cells that regulate everything from heart muscle to salivary glands send out projections known as axons to their targets. By way of these axonal processes, neurons control target function and receive molecular signals from targets that return to the cell body to support cell survival. Now, Johns Hopkins researchers have revealed a molecular mechanism that allows a signal from the target to return to the cell body and fulfill its neuron-sustaining mission. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-scientists-reveal-survival-mechanism-neurons.html Medical research Tue, 30 Aug 2011 07:51:41 EST news233909490 The complex inner wiring of the brain is coordinated in part by chemical guidance factors that help direct the interactions between individual neurons. As growing cells extend their axons outward, these tendrils are simultaneously drawn in the correct direction by attractive signals and steered away from ‘wrong turns’ by repulsive signals.  http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-neurons-track.html Neuroscience Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:10:01 EST news233574646 (Medical Xpress) -- Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered in mice a molecular trigger that initiates myelination, the process by which brain cell networks are reinforced with an insulating material called myelin that speeds their ability to transmit messages. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-brain-electrical-spurs-insulation-wiring.html Medical research Thu, 11 Aug 2011 04:49:09 EST news232256925 Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona researchers have discovered that Viagra drastically reduces multiple sclerosis symptoms in animal models with the disease. The research, published in Acta Neuropathologica, demonstrates that a practically complete recovery occurs in 50% of the animals after eight days of treatment. Researchers are confident that clinical trials soon will be carried out in patients given that the drug is well tolerated and has been used to treat sexual dysfunction in some multiple sclerosis patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-viagra-multiple-sclerosis-symptoms.html Medications Thu, 19 May 2011 10:50:37 EST news225021012 Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered how two closely related proteins guide projections from nerve cells with exquisite accuracy, alternately attracting and repelling these axons as they navigate the most miniscule and frenetic niches of the nervous system to make remarkably precise connections. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-scientists-reveal-nerve-cells.html Neuroscience Mon, 09 May 2011 11:38:01 EST news224159859