Imagine losing the ability to control your nerve function. You may encounter numbness and weakness in the limbs. Your ability to speak could decline as well as your vision. Tics and tremors might take over certain parts of your body. You even are at risk for depression.
These are just a few of the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, which is better known simply as MS. This condition affects over two million people worldwide and leads to significant reductions in a person’s quality of life. Yet quite possibly the worst aspect of this disease isn’t the range of symptoms, but the culprit causing them. Continue reading
Author: Julie
Sick Kids Researchers Are Using A Systematic Approach To Understand How Neurons Arise
What convinces a stem cell to determine its fate? It’s one of the most persistent questions in modern biology. Research over the last four decades has revealed there is no easy answer. For example, in the brain, stem cells in the embryo produce all of the different cell types at precise times and amounts. If stem cells are perturbed by altering their ability to make those cell types, this is thought to contribute to neuropsychiatric and developmental disorders.
To produce their progeny, stem cells receive signals from other cell types, blood vessels, and the cerebral spinal fluid, and even produce signals themselves. This in itself raises numerous questions. What are those signals? How many are there? How does a stem cell decide to respond to one signal and not another? More importantly, how can this all happen in a coordinated manner to ensure the proper development of the brain? Continue reading
UBC Researchers May Have Found How “Electrical Volume Control” Develops In The Brain
It’s an experience most of us have encountered at one time or another. We turn on the radio, stereo, television, or YouTube video and the volume is just too loud. Our reactions are almost immediate combining a mixture of frustration, helplessness, and a need to turn down the sound. Thankfully, we quickly can adjust the dial, slider, or remote to achieve a more comfortable level.
Now imagine that volume control cannot be adjusted and is fixed in one spot. If the levels are too high, you have to find other ways to deal with the auditory intrusion. It can lead to pain, frustration, and possibly an alteration in normal behaviour. In essence, when the sound is too loud, you suffer. Continue reading
High-speed connections
Researchers find a mechanism that allows the brain to reconfigure connections between neurons in mere minutes.
A team from the Quebec Mental Health Institute – Université Laval has discovered a mechanism that allows the brain to rapidly reconfigure connections between its neurons. According to the researchers, whose findings were published in a recent issue of the journal Nature Communications, this mechanism plays a central role in brain plasticity. Continue reading
Researchers find new role for cannabinoids in vision
Chemicals found to improve low-light vision of tadpoles by sensitizing retinal cells
A multidisciplinary team including researchers from the Montreal Neurological Institute has improved our understanding of how cannabinoids, the active agent in marijuana, affect vision in vertebrates.
Scientists used a variety of methods to test how tadpoles react to visual stimuli when they’ve been exposed to increased levels of exogenous or endogenous cannabinoids. Exogenous cannabinoids are artificially introduced drugs, whereas endogenous cannabinoids occur naturally in the body. Continue reading
New path of discovery in Parkinson’s disease
Neuron cell death may be caused by overactive immune system
A team of scientists led by Dr. Michel Desjardins from the University of Montreal and Dr. Heidi McBride from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (MNI) at McGill University have discovered that two genes associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD) are key regulators of the immune system, providing direct evidence linking Parkinson’s to autoimmune disease.
Using both cellular and mouse models, the team has shown that proteins produced by the two genes, known as PINK1 and Parkin, are required to prevent cells from being detected and attacked by the immune system. Continue reading
Middle-age memory decline a matter of changing focus
Research sheds new light on what constitutes healthy aging of the brain
The inability to remember details, such as the location of objects, begins in early midlife (the 40s) and may be the result of a change in what information the brain focuses on during memory formation and retrieval, rather than a decline in brain function, according to a study by McGill University researchers.
“Big Data” study discovers earliest sign of Alzheimer’s
Scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital have used a powerful tool to better understand the progression of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD), identifying its first physiological signs.
Led by Dr. Alan Evans, a professor of neurology, neurosurgery and biomedical engineering at the Neuro, the researchers analyzed more than 7,700 brain images from 1,171 people in various stages of Alzheimer’s progression using a variety of techniques including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET). Blood and cerebrospinal fluid were also analyzed, as well as the subjects’ level of cognition. Continue reading
Hummingbird vision wired to avoid high-speed collisions
Now researchers have discovered that the tiny birds process visual information differently from other animals, perhaps to handle the demands of their extreme aerial acrobatics.
“Birds fly faster than insects and it’s more dangerous if they collide with things,” said Roslyn Dakin, a postdoctoral fellow in the UBC’s department of zoology who led the study. “We wanted to know how they avoid collisions and we found that hummingbirds use their environment differently than insects to steer a precise course.” Continue reading
Sick Kids Researchers May Have Finally Figured Out Why We Can Remember Multiple Memories at Once
Have you ever noticed when you remember something from your past, you may also recall other moments from that time. It seems to be even more pronounced when remembering a moving event, such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the demise of the space shuttle Challenger, and more recently, the tragic events of 9/11.
While many of us experience these multiple memories, the mechanism behind their formation has been a biological enigma. For over a century researchers have tried to figure out how these combinations – or co-allocations – of memories occur. Yet successes have been few and far between. Continue reading