A new study led by The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) turns scientific prediction on its head. Contrary to what was expected, researchers found that siblings with autism spectrum disorder often carry very different genetic mutations.
This study, published in the Jan. 26 online edition of Nature Medicine, is the largest whole genome sequencing study in autism and one of the largest on any disorder to date. Continue reading
Dr. Robert Koenekoop, director of the McGill Ocular Genetics Laboratory at The Montreal Children’s Hospital of the MUHC, co-led this research.
Finding genes for retinal degenerations has immediate benefits for people living with blindness and vision loss, their families, and their physicians. Establishing a genetic cause confirms the clinical diagnosis at the molecular level, helps predict the future visual prognosis, suggests therapies, and allows some patients to join clinical trials. While more than 200 genes for retinal degenerations have been identified, approximately 40-50% of cases remain a mystery. Continue reading
Min Zhuo is a professor in the department of physiology at U of T and the Canada Research Chair in Pain and Cognition. Zhuo and his lab recently published a paper in the journal Neuron that showed how neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to physically re-organize itself in response to experience – can spur the interplay between chronic pain and anxiety. They also showed that a drug they developed for chronic pain can limit anxiety. Continue reading
Study sheds new light on link between salt intake and blood pressure
On the upcoming Super Bowl Sunday, a lot of us will be playing arm-chair quarterback. After the snap, we might use our eyes to track a wide receiver as he runs toward an opening, all the while remembering the location of the star running back in case he breaks through on a rushing play. This natural ability to track one moving player but be ready to quickly look back toward another one sounds simple. Continue reading
Humans and other primates have an extraordinary ability to voluntarily and efficiently focus attention on important information while ignoring distraction. For decades it has been hypothesized that this ability relies on the evolutionary expansion of the lateral prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain located in the lateral convexity of the frontal lobe, that reaches its highest level of complexity in primates.
“We were amazed by the extent to which microexons are misregulated in people with autism,” says Professor Benjamin Blencowe
Very small segments of genes called “microexons” influence how proteins interact with each other in the nervous system, say scientists at the University of Toronto. Continue reading
A research team led by Valerie Verge at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) has discovered an important molecular worker in the repair shop of the body’s nervous system, a finding that brings them a step closer to new treatments for debilitating nerve injuries.
The molecule in question is called Luman, a nerve cell (neuron) protein discovered by Vikram Misra in the Western College of Veterinary Medicine while investigating the common cold sore virus. Continue reading
Dr. Fang Liu, senior scientist in CAMH’s Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute and professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, and her team published their results online in the journal Neuron. Continue reading
How neurons communicate with each other is central to our understanding of the nervous system. Since the times of Golgi and Cajal, the roles of electrical vs. chemical forms of transmission have been much debated. While it is now well established that both electrical and chemical forms of transmission co-exist throughout the mammalian nervous system, gap junction-mediated electrical signals are found to be extremely weak compared to their chemical counterparts Continue reading
