RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-26 Research News When it comes to appreciating the depths of genome regulation, reading the genetic code itself is but the tip of the iceberg. Modifications to those DNA sequences, and to the histones they hug, dictate which genes will be expressed when and
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-23 Research News The genomes we inherit from our parents are not set in stone. After sperm meets egg, and mitosis is on its merry way, mutations occur in our DNA. They give rise to populations of cells harboring unique genomes and indeed, researchers suspect
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-22 Research News With growing interest in tau immunotherapy, researchers are exploring new antibodies that may have therapeutic potential for Alzheimer’s disease. In particular, recent findings suggest that antibodies against tau’s mid-region are the most ef
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-20 Research News An antibody to the blood-clotting protein fibrin leaves coagulation alone but blocks the ensuing inflammatory cascade. Scientists led by Katerina Akassoglou, Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, created the antibody to block a small domain o
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-19 Research News Researchers face a challenge in understanding the brain changes during the long course of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not possible to track neurodegeneration continuously in individual people for up to 30 years, so instead scientists collect s
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-19 Research News Despite reams of research on the hippocampus, scientists still know relatively little about its internal organization. Anatomists divide the hippocampal formation into six regions, but most functional studies define only two main networks, t
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-18 Research News Though motor neurons are the primary victims in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, it is their waning connections with muscles that ultimately triggers symptoms of the disease. This complex interaction can now be mimicked on a tiny silicone chip
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-16 Research News The LilrB2 receptor on the surface of neurons binds Aβ and is thought to mediate some of its toxicity. Researchers led by Lin Jiang and David Eisenberg at the University of California, Los Angeles, now detail the part of Aβ involved, and the
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-13 Research News Many genetic variants predispose to Alzheimer’s disease, but exactly how remains a mystery. In the October 8 Nature Genetics, researchers led by Philip De Jager at Columbia University and Towfique Raj at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sin
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-12 Research News Two recent studies examine the effect of early life brain function on late-life risk for Alzheimer’s disease. On September 7 in the new, open-access journal JAMA Network Open, scientists led by Susan Lapham, American Institutes for Research,
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-12 Research News A new model of Parkinson’s disease re-creates key features of the disorder, and helps steady one disputed theory of what causes it. Mice carrying mutations that disrupt physiological tetramers of the α-synuclein protein develop brain patholo
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-08 Research News Emanating from the largely unknown vastness of the non-protein-coding genome are tens of thousands of unique transcripts that point to a hidden world of gene regulation in human neurons. Researchers led by Clemens Scherzer of Brigham and Wom
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-05 Research News How do expanded hexanucleotide repeats in the C9ORF72 gene cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia? They give rise to aberrant dipeptide repeat proteins, but even though these DPRs form deposits, they correlate poorly
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-05 Research News A new signaling role is being proposed for the amyloid precursor protein. According to a September 20 paper in Translational Psychiatry, APP binds co-receptors of multiple branches of the Wingless/int-1 (Wnt) signaling pathway, variously pot
RESEARCH NEWS 2018-10-05 Research News Mutations in the C9ORF72 gene cause both the fatal motor-neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia, the second-leading cause of early onset dementia after Alzheimer’s. The gene may bear other bad news, accordin