News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Two receptors in the spinal cord and the right experimental drug: Researchers at the University of Zurich have discovered a new approach that suppresses itch. In a series of experiments in mice and dogs they successfully alleviated different forms of acute as well as chronic itch. For the latter, current treatment options are very limited.

Newborn granule cells show high excitability that disappears as the cells mature. Little has been known about the mechanisms that create low excitability in mature cells or how excitability of the newborn granule cells changes over time. Now University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have described key roles for G protein-mediated signaling and the late maturation of an ion channel during the differentiation of granule cells. Their study is published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

The same aspects of relatively recent evolutionary changes that make us prone to bad backs and impacted third molars may have generated long, noncoding stretches of DNA that predispose individuals to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other neuropsychiatric diseases. A study publishing Aug. 9 in the American Journal of Human Genetics identifies an unusually lengthy array of tandem repeats found only within the human version of a gene governing calcium transport in the brain.

A study by University of Melbourne researchers reveals clinically relevant epileptic seizure prediction is possible in a wider range of patients than previously thought, thanks to the crowdsourcing of more than 10,000 algorithms worldwide.

Model system researchers have examined the factors that influence productive activity one year after traumatic brain injury (TBI).