Category Biology/Biotechnology

The cerebellum, once thought to be limited to controlling movement, is involved in every aspect of higher brain function, according to a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Cerebellum checks and corrects thoughts, movement. The cerebellum, once thought to be limited to controlling movement, is involved in every aspect of higher brain function, according to a new study. – not just movement, but attention, thinking, planning and decision-making. “The biggest surprise to me was the discovery that 80 percent of the cerebellum is devoted to the smart stuff,” said senior author Nico Dosenbach, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of neurology, of occupational therapy and of pediatrics. “Everyone thought the cerebellum was about movement...

Biomedical engineering assistant professor Hyun Jung Kim with the gut-on-a-chip. Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin

Once the gut barrier has been damaged, probiotics can be harmful just like any other bacteria. The first study investigating the mechanism of how a disease develops using human organ-on-a-chip technology has been successfully completed by engineers at The University of Texas at Austin.

Researchers from the Cockrell School of Engineering were able to shed light on a part of the human body – the digestive system – where many questions remain unanswered. Using their “gut inflammation-on-a-chip” microphysiological system, the research team confirmed that intestinal barrier disruption is the onset initiator of gut inflammation.

The study also include...

Assistant Professor Xiaoke Chen, right, discusses the functions of the paraventricular thalamus with researcher Greg Nachtrab, one of his co-authors on a new paper.
Credit: L.A. Cicero/Stanford University

In order to learn about the world, an animal needs to do more than just pay attention to its surroundings. It also needs to learn which sights, sounds and sensations in its environment are the most important and monitor how the importance of those details change over time. Yet how humans and other animals track those details has remained a mystery.

Now, Stanford biologists think they’ve figured out how animals sort through the details...

Booze on the brain
Studying fruit flies, researchers at Brown University found that alcohol hijacks a conserved memory pathway in the brain, forming the cravings that fuel addiction. The pink areas are the fly’s memory centers and the green dots are where the first molecular signaling “domino” Notch has been activated.
Kaun Lab/Brown University

Researchers have found that alcohol hijacks a conserved memory pathway in the brain and changes which versions of genes are made, forming the cravings that fuel addiction. One of the many challenges with battling alcohol addiction and other substance abuse disorders is the risk of relapse, even after progress toward recovery...