Researchers at the NYU Pain Research Center have found a new receptor for nerve growth factor that plays an important role in pain signaling, even though it does not signal on its own, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The findings hold promise for finding new treatments for arthritis and other forms of inflammatory and cancer pain, without the side effects that led recent therapies to fail in clinical trials. 

First-of-its-kind sensor monitors fluctuating proteins within the body in real time. In an animal study, device accurately tracked biomarkers of inflammation. Device also could track protein markers for other illnesses, including heart failure.

A new study published in Cell Stem Cell provides the first cellular evidence that making new brain cells in adults supports verbal learning and memory, which enables people to have conversations and to remember what they hear. This discovery could point to new approaches to restore cognitive function.  The study, led by scientists from USC Stem Cell and the USC Neurorestoration Center at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, relied on brain tissue from patients with drug-resistant cases of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE), which involves seizures as well as accelerated cognitive decline.  The researchers found that MTLE patients experience cognitive decline in many areas – including a dramatic decline in verbal learning and memory, as well as for intelligence, during the first 20 years of seizures. During those same two decades, neurogenesis slows to the point where immature brain cells became nearly undetectable. Based on these observations, the scientists searched for links between the number of immature brain cells and the major areas of MTLE-related cognitive decline. They found the strongest association occurs between the declining number of immature brain cells and verbal learning and memory.