Immunology

Altering the immune system to reverse paralysis

In the ultimate betrayal, one's own immune system can turn against the protective sheath that envelops neurons in the brain, leaving the body paralyzed. Researchers have developed an experimental treatment that tames the ...

Neuroscience

Researchers solve multiple sclerosis puzzle

Evidence has long suggested multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease, but researchers have been puzzled because they found the same T cells that attack the myelin sheathing around nerve cells in MS patients are present ...

Neuroscience

What does myelin actually do?

Students of physiology are invariably taught that the primary function of myelin is to insulate nerves. In particular, to make action potentials more efficient by increasing the thickness of the membrane and thereby decreasing ...

Neuroscience

Study finds a key to nerve regeneration

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found a switch that redirects helper cells in the peripheral nervous system into "repair" mode, a form that restores damaged axons.

Neuroscience

Environmental factors may trigger onset of multiple sclerosis

A new Tel Aviv University study finds that certain environmental conditions may precipitate structural changes that take place in myelin sheaths in the onset of multiple sclerosis (MS). Myelin sheaths are the "insulating ...

Neuroscience

Researchers discover nerve repair mechanism

The research group of the Physiology Department of Elche's Universidad Miguel Hernández (UMH), Hugo Cabedo, has discovered how peripheral nerves induce the repair of the myelin sheath so that communication is properly restored ...

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