Vivian Hook on Not the Usual Suspects: Tracking BACE Inhibition, Axon Role

COMMENT This article by Mattsson et al. is authored by an outstanding group, which investigated the effects of BACE1 inhibitors on Aβ peptide forms in media secreted from cultured neurons and in CSF after in-vivo treatment of dogs. Interestingly, the data suggest

Vivian Hook

University of California, San Diego
San Diego, United States

Ahmad Salehi on Trisomy of the G protein-coupled K+ channel gene, Kcnj6, affects reward mechanisms, cognitive functions, and synaptic plasticity in mice.

COMMENT This strategy is very interesting, and, apparently, the mice with Kcnj6 trisomy show similar behavioral abnormalities as those found in the Ts65Dn mouse, which is a widely used mouse model of Down's syndrome. Obviously, there are around 400 other gen

PAPER Cooper A, Grigoryan G, Guy-David L, Tsoory MM, Chen A, Reuveny E

Trisomy of the G protein-coupled K+ channel gene, Kcnj6, affects reward mechanisms, cognitive functions, and synaptic plasticity in mice.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jan 30; PubMed: 22308328

Upping Brain ApoE, Drug Treats Alzheimer's Mice

RESEARCH NEWS 2012-02-10 Research News Move over, β amyloid. Here comes apolipoprotein E—target of a potential new Alzheimer’s disease therapy that looks promising in mice. In an online Science paper published yesterday and covered widely in the lay media (see, e.g., National Pub

Computer-Painted Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

RESEARCH NEWS 2012-02-10 Research News Neuroscientists are reaping the benefits of new technological advances in image processing. “The old strategy was to take 40 to 50 images of different regions of the brain at high magnification and then piece them together manually, like a m

Silent Vascular Disease May Hasten Dementia Progression

RESEARCH NEWS 2012-02-10 Research News Sometimes what you don’t know can hurt you. In a small pilot study of people with dementia, those who had occasional small clots of solid material flowing through their cerebral arteries declined nearly twice as fast on several cognitive mea

Virtual Reality Reveals Deep-Brain Memory Stimulus, Early AD Signs

RESEARCH NEWS 2012-02-10 Research News Deep-brain stimulation (DBS)—which delivers electrical pulses by wires directly to select brain areas—has been shown to calm Parkinson's tremors, and is being explored as a way to alleviate depression and relieve obsessive-compulsive be

PAPER Ravid R, Ferrer I

Brain banks as key part of biochemical and molecular studies on cerebral cortex involvement in Parkinson's disease.

FEBS J. 2012 Apr;279(7):1167-76. PubMed: 22313511

PAPER Fauvet B, Mbefo MK, Fares MB, Desobry C, Michael S, Ardah MT, Tsika E, Coune P, Prudent M, Lion N, Eliezer D, Moore DJ, Schneider B, Aebischer P, El-Agnaf OM, Masliah E, Lashuel HA

α-Synuclein in central nervous system and from erythrocytes, mammalian cells, and Escherichia coli exists predominantly as disordered monomer.

J Biol Chem. 2012 May 4;287(19):15345-64. Epub 2012 Feb 7 PubMed: 22315227

PAPER Lundblad M, Decressac M, Mattsson B, Björklund A

Impaired neurotransmission caused by overexpression of α-synuclein in nigral dopamine neurons.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 28;109(9):3213-9. PubMed: 22315428

PAPER Takuma K, Mizoguchi H, Funatsu Y, Hoshina Y, Himeno Y, Fukuzaki E, Kitahara Y, Arai S, Ibi D, Kamei H, Matsuda T, Koike K, Inoue M, Nagai T, Yamada K

Combination of chronic stress and ovariectomy causes conditioned fear memory deficits and hippocampal cholinergic neuronal loss in mice.

Neuroscience. 2012 Apr 5;207:261-73. PubMed: 22314316

PAPER Mosley RL, Hutter-Saunders JA, Stone DK, Gendelman HE

Inflammation and adaptive immunity in Parkinson's disease.

Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2012 Jan;2(1):a009381. PubMed: 22315722

PAPER Ikenaka K, Katsuno M, Kawai K, Ishigaki S, Tanaka F, Sobue G

Disruption of axonal transport in motor neuron diseases.

Int J Mol Sci. 2012;13(1):1225-38. PubMed: 22312314

PAPER Wosiski-Kuhn M, Stranahan AM

Transient increases in dendritic spine density contribute to dentate gyrus long-term potentiation.

Synapse. 2012 Feb 8; PubMed: 22314918