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Researchers identify how inflammation spreads through the brain after injury

The findings were published today in a study in the  Journal of Neuroinflammation . This new understanding has the potential to transform how brain inflammation is understood, and, ultimately, how it is treated. The researchers showed that microparticles derived from brain inflammatory cells are markedly increased in both the brain and the blood following experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI). These microparticles carry pro-inflammatory factors that can activate normal immune cells, making them potentially toxic to brain neurons. Injecting such microparticles into the brains of uninjured animals creates progressive inflammation at both the injection site and eventually in more distant sites. Research has found that neuroinflammation o ften goes on for years after TBI, causing chronic brain damage. The researchers say that the microparticles may play a key role in this process. Chronic inflammation has been increasingly implicated in the progressive cell loss and neur...
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Sound waves boost older adults' memory, deep sleep

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Deep sleep is essential for reminiscence consolidation. However starting in center age, deep sleep decreases considerably, which scientists imagine contribute s to reminiscence loss in growing older. Credit score: © WavebreakMediaMicro / Fotolia Light sound stimulation -- similar to the push of a waterfall -- synchronized to the rhythm of mind waves considerably enhanced deep sleep in older adults and improved their capacity to recall phrases, studies a brand new Northwestern Medication examine. Deep sleep is essential for reminiscence consolidation. However starting in center age, deep sleep decreases considerably, which scientists imagine contributes to reminiscence loss in growing older. The sound stimulation considerably enhanced deep sleep in contributors and their scores on a reminiscence take a look at. "That is an progressive, easy and secure non-medication strategy wh...
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Diabetes drug shows promise for safely treating, detecting Alzheimer's disease

A new study has found treatment with the diabetes drug amylin (or pramlintide) safely improves learning and memory function in AD patients and reduces the AD pathology in their brains. The findings, which appear in the  Journal Translational Research and Clinical Interventions , also may lead to the development of a blood test for AD. Currently, lumbar punctures to detect biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid and positron emission tomography imaging scans are used to diagnose AD. Unfortunately many patients are fearful of these procedures and the high cost is prohibitive. "A single injection of pramlintide into our patients was well tolerated and reduced the amyloid burden as well as lowered the concentrations of amyloid-β peptides, a major component of AD in the brain," explained corresponding author Wendy Qiu, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at Boston University School of Medicine. "Our study suggests a p...
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'Jumping genes' may set the stage for brain cell death in Alzheimer's, other diseases

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Three-D modeling exhibits that Alu insertions inside the TOMM40 gene might make the channel protein it encodes fold into the flawed form, inflicting the mitochondria's import equipment to clog and cease working. Credit score: Mannequin courtesy of Peter Larsen The newest spherical of failed drug trials for Alzheimer's has researchers questioning the reigning strategy to battling the illness, which focuses on stopping a sticky protein known as amyloid from build up within the mind. Duke College scientists have recognized a mechanism within the molecular equipment of the cell that would assist clarify how neurons start to falter within the preliminary levels of Alzheimer's, even earlier than amyloid clumps seem. This rethinking of the Alzheimer's course of facilities on human genes essential for the wholesome functioning of mitochondria, the vitality factories of the cel...
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Researchers discover how neurons tell each other to die under trauma, disease

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Professor Christopher Deppmann carried out the analysis with lead writer and graduate pupil Kanchana Gamage. Credit score: Dan Addison, College Communications A serious contributor to most neurological illnesses is the degeneration of a wire-like a part of nerve cells known as an axon, which electrically transmits data from one neuron to a different. The molecular packages underlying axon degeneration are due to this fact essential targets for therapeutic intervention -- the thought being that if axons might be preserved, quite than allowed to die in diseased circumstances, then lack of essential processes like motion, speech or reminiscence can be slowed. For greater than 150 years, researchers believed that axons died independently of each other when injured because of trauma, resembling stroke or mind harm, or of a neurological illness, resembling Alzheimer's. However a brand new...
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Chemical that detects plaques in Alzheimer's brains extends lifespan of roundworms

In a study involving more than 44,000 animals published in  Nature Communications , researchers from Rutgers, The University of Oregon, and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California tested 10 different compounds from multiple species of roundworms that featured more genetic diversity than can be found between mice and humans, and found that Thioflavin T was the most effective in increasing the lifespan in all species and doubling it in one. Up until now, chemical compounds that have been found to extend life in worms and mice have been most often studied in animals with specific -- and somewhat uniform -- genetic backgrounds. But Thioflavin T worked in all the genetically diverse species, possibly by preventing damaged and misfolded proteins which in humans contributes to age-related diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's. "These worms may have been the same basic animal but, like humans, their genes had a lot of variation which mea...
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Never before seen images of early stage Alzheimer's disease

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Photos that predate the formation of poisonous clumps of beta-amyloid, the protein believed to be on the root of Alzheimer’s illness, have now been captured by researchers. Credit score: Illustration: Per Uvdal Researchers at Lund College in Sweden have used the MAX IV synchrotron in Lund -- the strongest of its sort on this planet -- to supply pictures that predate the formation of poisonous clumps of beta-amyloid, the protein believed to be on the root of Alzheimer's illnes s. The distinctive pictures seem to contradict a beforehand unchallenged consensus. As a substitute of trying to eradicate beta-amyloid, or so-called plaques, the researchers now recommend stabilizing the protein. It's a long-held perception within the scientific group that the beta-amyloid plaques seem nearly instantaneously. Therefore the time period "popcorn plaques." The infrared spectroscopy...
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