Author: Julie
-
Canadian Researchers Reveal How Certain Chronic Diseases Can Worsen The Effects of Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple Sclerosis is known as a progressive disease in which symptoms worsen over time. But for some 85% of those who suffer, the first stages of the illness come in waves. The individual may feel perfectly well some days while others are marked with worsening or new symptoms. Officially this condition is known as relapsing…
-
Researchers at SickKids identify an anti-cancer drug as a candidate to inhibit the degeneration of neurons.
Nerve injuries and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and glaucoma share some characteristics, one of which is the degeneration of a part of neurons called the axon. Axons are long extensions that branch out of the cell body to allow neurons to connect to other…
-
uOBMRI researchers open new doors for Parkinson’s drug therapies
Dr. David Park has spent countless hours exploring how deactivating a gene impacts the way a cell handles the very nutrients it needs for its own survival and proper function. To Park and his research team, it’s an essential piece of the puzzle that is Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s affects 10 million people worldwide, causing a…
-
Neuroscientists link memory fundamentals with Alzheimer’s disease in promising study
Deteriorating memory function is a scary, life changing symptom associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) – a neurodegenerative disease exhibited by cognitive declines such as speech, behaviour and thinking processes. Even though it is the most common form of dementia and the prevalence is continuously rising, there is no cure. While there are medications to help…
-
Child abuse affects brain wiring
Researchers from the McGill Group for Suicide Studies, based at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University’s Department of Psychiatry, have just published research in the American Journal of Psychiatry that suggests that the long-lasting effects of traumatic childhood experiences, like severe abuse, may be due to an impaired structure and functioning of cells in the anterior…
-
Is cardiovascular health the key to protecting the brain against dementia?
New research from the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health asks: Can “good” cholesterol protect against age-related cognitive decline? A trio of papers from researchers in Dr. Cheryl Wellington’s lab illustrate new context for the role of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) – commonly described as good cholesterol – in protecting the brain against disease.
-
The two faces of depression
Major depression affects the expression of genes in the brains of women and men differently Major depression presents itself quite differently in women and men, and this dimorphism would have genomic foundations, suggests a study that has just been published in Nature Medicine. According to the first author of this study, Benoit Labonté of the…
-
University of British Columbia Researchers Take A Closer Look At The Potential For Stem Cell Therapy After Spinal Cord Injury
Injury of the spinal cord is a traumatic and life-changing event that affects over three million people worldwide. Over the last decade, researchers have been examining ways to help repair injured individuals through the use of stem cell transplantation. Significant progress has been made in this area yet many unanswered questions remain. For the laboratory…
-
Pinpointing the origins of autism
Abnormalities shown to first appear in brain networks involved in sensory processing The origins of autism remain mysterious. What areas of the brain are involved, and when do the first signs appear? New findings published in Biological Psychiatry bring us closer to understanding the pathology of autism, and the point at which it begins to…
-
Could olfactory loss point to Alzheimer’s disease?
Promising finding suggests odour identification tests may help scientists track the evolution of the disease in persons at risk By the time you start losing your memory, it’s almost too late. That’s because the damage to your brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may already have been going on for as long as twenty years.…