CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2004-12-16 Conference Coverage To the student of neurodegenerative diseases, the Society for Neuroscience conference can seem like an overloaded buffet where only morsels of the food tickle one’s taste buds. By comparison, the satellite meetings offer a carefully se
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-12-16 Research News Society’s solution to energy requirements is to generate power remotely, then transmit it over vast distances. In contrast, biological systems adopt a local approach, generating power wherever it is needed. Perhaps nowhere is this more evide
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-12-16 Research News If you have an accident, calling 911, or your local equivalent, will get you the paramedics. In case of neural injury, dialing up SDF-1 might get you a dose of much-needed stem cells, while class 1 MHC molecules might be just what you need t
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-12-15 Research News Though there is already plenty of evidence linking lipid metabolism and obesity to Alzheimer disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative diseases (see, for example, ARF related news story and ARF news story), the case just got stronger. Reporti
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-12-13 Research News The link between protein aggregation and neurodegenerative diseases is certainly a hot topic these days, awash with questions over whether reducing aggregation is a good idea, and if it is, what aggregates should be targeted. Perhaps just th
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-12-08 Research News Two articles from the past week describe very different approaches to therapy for Parkinson disease (PD). A paper published 2 December in PNAS went close to the root of the problem, reporting that overexpression of parkin from cDNA delivered
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2004-12-05 Conference Coverage This report summarizes discussions and recommendations made at the fourth annual workshop on Enabling Technologies for Alzheimer's disease (AD), held in August 2004 in Bar Harbor, Maine. Academic and industry scientists from insid
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2004-12-05 Conference Coverage Axonal Transport Larry Goldstein, of University of California, San Diego, laid out his hypothesis that defects in axonal transport could starve the nerve terminal of needed supplies and lead to synaptic dysfunction in AD, Huntington
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2004-12-05 Conference Coverage List of Final Recommendations 1. Make better mouse models. Create strains with only subtle overexpression under endogenous promoter and authentic spatiotemporal regulation, such as YAC. Recreate humanized APP rat unavailable from Cepha
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-12-03 Research News Among its many reputed transgressions, amyloid-β is suspected of interfering with synaptic function from the earliest stages of Alzheimer disease (see ARF related news story). A study published in the December issue of the Journal of Clinica
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-12-02 Research News Different isoforms of glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) have been linked to Alzheimer disease (AD). The β variant is one of several kinases that phosphorylate the microtubule-associated protein tau (see ARF related news story), which, when
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-11-29 Research News Ubiquitination, sumoylation (tagging with small ubiquitin-like modifiers), ubiquitinated aggregates, and problems with ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation have all been linked to pathological processes that underlie various neurodegen
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-11-29 Research News There have been several lines of evidence, some anecdotal, suggesting that antibiotics can slow the rate of progression of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer (see ARF related news story) and Parkinson diseases (see ARF related
RESEARCH NEWS 2004-11-24 Research News Surveying the protein profile of a tissue or body fluid by traditional methods—separating proteins by 2D gels and then analyzing the spots by mass spectrometry—has not proven a very efficient way to detect changes in protein levels in neurod
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2004-11-23 Conference Coverage Since the discovery that one peptide, amyloid-β, is the major constituent of amyloid plaques, there has been a tremendous focus on the N-terminal end of amyloid-β precursor protein (AβPP). But as emphasized at the 34th annual meeting o