Category Health/Medical

Alzheimer Disease Pathology and Site of Gene Delivery in a Patient 7 Years After Gene Transfer Credit: http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2427383

The affected neurons displayed heightened growth, axonal sprouting and activation of functional markers after nerve growth factor (NGF) was injected into their brains.The findings are derived from postmortem analyses of 10 patients who participated in phase I clinical trials launched in 2001 to assess whether injected NGF – a protein essential to cellular growth, maintenance and survival – might safely slow or prevent neuronal degeneration in patients with AD.

Cholinergic Neuronal Hypertrophy and Sprouting Credit: http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2427383

Administering NGF directly into the brain – a fir...

Norovirus structure (Copyright: BV Prasad)

“More than 80% of human norovirus genotypes were detected in oyster samples or oyster-related outbreaks,” said corresponding author Yongjie Wang, PhD. In the study, they downloaded all oyster-related norovirus sequences deposited during 1983-2014 into the National Center for Biotechnology’s GenBank database, and into the Noronet outbreak database. They conducted genotyping and phylogenic analyses, and mapped the norovirus’s genetic diversity and geographic distribution over time.

In earlier research, the investigators found that 90% of human norovirus sequences in China came from coastal regions. The current research showed that the same is true all over the world, except in tropical regions, from which sequences are absent...

Using pattern recognition software, the prototype analyses changes in breathing patterns and converts ‘breath signals’ into words. Credit: Image courtesy of Loughborough University

Billed as a tool to help bring back the art of conversation for sufferers of severe paralysis and loss of speech, the prototype analyses changes in breathing patterns and converts ‘breath signals’ into words using pattern recognition software and an analogue-to-digital converter. A speech synthesizer then reads the words aloud.

The Augmentative and Alternate Communication (AAC) device is designed for patients with complete or partial loss of voluntary muscle control who don’t have the ability to make purposeful movements such as sniffing or blinking – gestures which previous AAC devices have come to rely upon.

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Highlights •Early neural stem cell NSC impairment in 3xTg-AD mice correlates with SVZ subventricular zone niche lipid accumulations •Similar lipid accumulations are found in the SVZ in postmortem human AD brains •Accumulating SVZ lipids are locally generated, oleic acid-enriched triglycerides •Inhibiting oleic acid signaling or synthesis rescues NSC defects in 3xTg-AD mice Credit: Fernandes et al. Aberrant Lipid Metabolism in the Forebrain Niche Suppresses Adult Neural Stem Cell Proliferation in an Animal Model of Alzheimer’s Disease. Cell Stem Cell, 27 August 2015 DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2015.08.001

For the 1st time since the disease was described 109 years ago, researchers have discovered accumulations of fat droplets/ lipids in the brain of patients who died from the disease and h...