News by Subject Medicine & Health

Leaks in the blood-brain barrier can provide early detection for Alzheimer's and diseases.

The vessels appear to carry previously unknown messages from the brain to the immune system that ultimately cause the disease symptoms. Blocking those messages may offer doctors a new way to treat a potentially devastating condition that affects more than 2 million people.

Astrocytes important role in brain function suggests they are also involved in disease. Now, scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified an astrocyte subpopulation as the dominant cell type to spring into action in vivo (in a living organism) in a neuroinflammatory disease setting. Their early activation inspired their new name: ieAstrocytes (immediate early astrocytes). The study published today in eNeuro.

In a new study published in the scientific journal of repute Nature Communications researchers from the University of Copenhagen have discovered how an enzyme that plays a key role in cancer development functions. The researchers hope the new knowledge will lead to the design of more precise drugs.

MIT neuroscientists devised a way to measure dopamine in the brain for up to a year, which they believe will teach them much more about its role in key brain functions and in disorders such as depression and Parkinson's disease.