http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. A few years ago it was found that certain proteins, the prions, when defective are dangerous, as they are involved in neurodegenerative syndromes such as the Creutzfeldt-Jakob and the Alzheimer diseases. But now research is showing their good side, too: when performing well, prions may be crucial in the development of the brain during childhood, as observed by a study carried out by a team of neuroscientists at Trieste's SISSA which appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-good-side-prion-molecule-dangerous.html Medical research Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:10:01 EST news280080444 A research team composed of University of Kentucky researchers has published a paper which provides the first direct evidence that activated astrocytes could play a harmful role in Alzheimer's disease. The UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging has also received significant new National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to further this line of study. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-team-inhibits-alzheimer-biomarkers-animal.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:52:50 EST news274459840 In a recent publication, researchers of the Computational Biology group at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine showed that neuro-inflammation plays a crucial role in initiating prion disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-brain-inflammation-key-prion-parkinson.html Parkinson's & Movement disorders Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:54:09 EST news273412443 (Medical Xpress)—Autoimmune diseases are triggered by immune cells that attack the body's own tissue. In multiple sclerosis (MS) immune cells succeed in invading nervous tissue and sparking off a destructive inflammation there which can be accompanied by neurological deficits such as paralysis and somatosensory defects. A healthy brain is practically free from immune cells, because the nervous system is separated from the rest of the body via specialized blood vessels that prevent immune cells from entering it from the blood. Up to now it has been unclear how in MS immune cells can overcome this barrier and seemingly pass unhindered into the brain tissue. A research team, initially at the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Martinsried, and later at the University of Göttingen, could now show that these disease-causing immune cells are programmed in the lung to be more motile and to efficiently break through blood vessel barriers. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-multiple-sclerosis-remote.html Immunology Tue, 11 Sep 2012 09:00:04 EST news266571291 European researchers are working toward restoration of mobility in neuromuscular disease and trauma. Using miniature scaffolds to guide nerve regeneration, they are seeking to ensure proper functional connections between peripheral nerves and their target muscles. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-reconnecting-nerves-muscles.html Medical research Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:12:36 EST news262948349 The challenge of Dr. Mark Ellisman's life is understanding how the brain works. He wants to know how the interplay of structural, chemical, and electrical signals in and between cells of nervous tissue gives rise to behavior. To meet this challenge, he and his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, develop methods to understand the entire brain, studying it from the whole atoms up to the whole structure. An innovative tool they've built is the Whole Brain Catalog, which is similar to Google Earth, allowing scientists to see the details and the bigger view. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-brain.html Other Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:23:32 EST news233317399