I was listening to a podcast about this week in science (http://www.twis.org/2014/11/07/1645/) one of the topics was about how fat in your diet is actually good for your brain. Essentially, the research found that fat (the biological kind) paired with sugar is essential for the maintenance of stem cells in the brain. |
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A new image-based strategy has been used to identify and measure placebo effects in randomized clinical trials for brain disorders. The researchers used a network mapping technique to identify specific brain circuits underlying the response to sham surgery in Parkinson's disease patients.
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For the first time, scientists have successfully replaced the damaged DNA of a type 1 diabetes sufferer with the healthy genetic material of an infant donor. It is hoped that when these cells are injected back into the diabetic patient they will begin to produce insulin of their own accord. Using the cloning technique which produced Dolly the sheep in 1996, the procedure would prevent the need for daily insulin injections and effectively ‘cure’ the disease. “We are now one step closer to being able to treat diabetic patients with their own insulin-producing cells,” said Dr Dieter Egli, the New York Stem Cell Foundation scientist who led the research. "From the start, the goal of this work has been to make patient-specific stem cells from an adult human subject with type 1 diabetes that can give rise to the cells lost in the disease.” Patients with type 1 diabetes lack insulin-producing beta cells, resulting in insulin deficiency and high blood-sugar levels. | Because the stem cells are made using a patient’s own skin cells, the engineered cells for replacement therapy would matching the patient’s DNA and so would not be rejected. It is hoped that in future the stem cell therapy could be used for a wide range of conditions including Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, and liver diseases and for replacing or repairing damaged bones. |
I read an article in PyschologyToday that talked about the complexity of the human brain. There are about 125 trillion synapses in the cerebral cortex alone. To put that into astronomical terms, there are at least 1,000 times more synapses in a single cerebral cortex than there are stars in the galaxy! Yeah, it's safe to say our brains are complex beasts of awesomeness. |
Running, cardio activities in young adulthood may preserve thinking skills in middle age
Young adults who run or participate in other cardio fitness activities may preserve their memory and thinking skills in middle age, according to a new study. Middle age was defined as ages 43 to 55 in this study. "These findings are likely to help us earlier identify and consequently prevent or treat those at high risk of developing dementia," researchers said.
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A consortium led by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has conducted the largest survey yet of how information encoded in an animal genome is processed in different organs, stages of development, and environmental conditions. Their findings paint a new picture of how genes function in the nervous system and in response to environmental stress.
They report their research this week in the Advance Online Publication of the journal Nature.
The scientists studied the fruit fly, an important model organism in genetics research. Seventy percent of known human disease genes have closely related genes in the fly, yet the fly genome is one-thirtieth the size of ours. Previous fruit fly research has provided insights on cancer, birth defects, addictive behavior, and neurological diseases. It has also advanced our understanding of processes common to all animals such as body patterning and synaptic transmission.
In the latest scientific fruit from the fruit fly, the consortium, led by Susan Celniker of Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division, generated the most comprehensive map of gene expression in any animal to date. Scientists from the University of California at Berkeley, Indiana University at Bloomington, the University of Connecticut Health Center, and several other institutions contributed to the research.
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They report their research this week in the Advance Online Publication of the journal Nature.
The scientists studied the fruit fly, an important model organism in genetics research. Seventy percent of known human disease genes have closely related genes in the fly, yet the fly genome is one-thirtieth the size of ours. Previous fruit fly research has provided insights on cancer, birth defects, addictive behavior, and neurological diseases. It has also advanced our understanding of processes common to all animals such as body patterning and synaptic transmission.
In the latest scientific fruit from the fruit fly, the consortium, led by Susan Celniker of Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division, generated the most comprehensive map of gene expression in any animal to date. Scientists from the University of California at Berkeley, Indiana University at Bloomington, the University of Connecticut Health Center, and several other institutions contributed to the research.
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