Motor neurons control movement, breathing, swallowing and speaking. Their death is a hallmark of progressive diseases such as spinal muscular atrophy and ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Understanding what can cause motor neurons to die is a key to developing precision treatments. Scientists are finding that the causes of motor neuron diseases are […]

What would you do if you knew how long you had until Alzheimer’s disease set in? Don’t despair. New UC Berkeley research suggests one defense against this virulent form of dementia — for which no treatment currently exists — is deep, restorative sleep, and plenty of it.

Primary somatosensory neurons are specialized to transmit specific types of sensory information through differences in cell size, myelination, and the expression of distinct receptors and ion channels, which together define their transcriptional and functional identity. By profiling sensory ganglia at single-cell resolution, we find that all somatosensory neuronal subtypes undergo a similar transcriptional response to […]

In laboratory experiments, a chemical compound found in the shell of the cashew nut promotes the repair of myelin, a team from Vanderbilt University Medical Center reported Aug. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers hypothesize vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency may play a significant role in dementia associated with alcohol use disorder. It is known iron deposits in the brain contribute to neurodegenerative diseases. Those with AUD have elevated levels of both iron in their blood and thiamine deficiency. Thiamine is vital for maintaining the blood-brain barrier. Thiamine deficiency […]

An investigational drug that targets an instigator of the TDP-43 protein, a well-known hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), may reduce the protein’s buildup and neurological decline associated with these disorders, suggests a pre-clinical study from researchers at Penn Medicine and Mayo Clinic. Results were published in Science Translational Medicine.

Stop scratching: rubbing skin activates an anti-itch pathway in the spinal cord, according to research in mice recently published in JNeurosci.

In rodents with type 2 diabetes, a single surgical injection of a protein called fibroblast growth factor 1 can restore blood sugar levels to normal for weeks or months. Yet how this growth factor acts in the brain to generate this lasting benefit has been poorly understood. Clarifying how this occurs might lead to more […]

A new study led by researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine compares adolescent siblings to determine the impact of early and frequent use of marijuana on cognitive function. This study, published in the journal Addiction, contrasts with previous studies by finding that moderate adolescent cannabis use may have adverse effects that cannot […]

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are on the track of a gene that might play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. The research team is studying a gene called BIN1, which was first linked to Alzheimer’s disease in 2009.