Category Health/Medical

RGFP966 is an HDAC3 inhibitor

Clues to keeping brain cells alive in those with Alzheimer’s. A drug now being used to treat cancer might make it easier to learn a language, sharpen memory and help those with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease by rewiring the brain and keeping neurons alive. New research found that a drug – RGFP966 – administered to rats made them more attuned to what they were hearing, able to retain and remember more information, and develop new connections that allowed these memories to be transmitted between brain cells.”This drug could rescue the ability to make new memories that are rich in detail and content, even in the worst case scenarios.”

What happens with dementias such as Alzheimer’s is that brain cells shrink and die because the synapses that transfer informatio...

In 1953, a man named Henry Molaison underwent a surgery which removed most of his hippocampus in an attempt to cure his epileptic seizures. The surgery was a qualified success though, because in addition to curing him of seizures he also lost the ability to form new long term memories. It was Molaison’s memory problems that led doctors to conclude that the hippocampus was the part of the brain responsible for long term memory.

IBS Center for RNA Research used a tool called Ribosome profiling (RPF) as well as RNA-seq to analyze mouse hippocampi...

Proliferation of NSCs and expression of Shh in Gli1-null mice.

An experimental drug GANT61 originally identified in a National Cancer Institute library of chemical compounds as a potential therapy for brain and basal cell cancers improves the symptoms of mice with a form of the debilitating neurological disorder multiple sclerosis (MS), according to new research.

It blocks the action of a key protein, Gli1, which is involved in so-called sonic hedgehog signaling, a biological pathway closely tied to neural stem cell development and the growth of some cancers, and whose signaling is raised in tissue samples taken from brain lesions in patients with MS.

In the study, mice with chemically damaged brain myelin were given daily doses of GANT61 for one month...

Researchers have reached a breakthrough in understanding how fructose is transported into our cells. This could be a potential benefit for the development of novel treatments against some forms of cancer, obesity and diabetes. The research deals with how fructose, one of the major sugars in our diet, is taken up by our cells from the blood. The researchers have been able to show how the protein GLUT5, at atomic level, transports fructose through the cell membrane.

“By revealing how the fructose transporter functions at the atomic level, we can now begin to understand other things about it. For example, how this gate-keeper is selective to fructose from all other thousands of other molecules our cells are constantly bombarded by,” says Dr...