Category Health/Medical

This is Drosophila intestine associated with lactobacilli bacteria, seen in red. The green GFP-positive tissue on the edges is a measure of the upregulation of Nrf2-responsive cytoprotection genes. Credit: Rheinallt Jones

A helpful subset of the intestinal microbiome, lactobacilli, stimulates the cytoprotective Nrf2 pathway in both flies and mice. The findings could potentially lead to advances in the use of bacteria to treat intestinal diseases or mitigate the effects of radiation therapy for cancer. “The body’s response to bacteria is often seen through the lens of the immune system,” says Prof. Andrew Neish, MD. “The pathway we’ve identified is not inflammatory or immunoregulatory; rather, it’s cytoprotective.”

While many types of bacteria that live in our intestines are inert or even h...

Researchers looking at blood samples identified two biological markers for the condition, hypersomnia.

Aerobic exercise can help alleviate excessive daytime sleepiness among depressed individuals. Researchers looking at blood samples identified two biological markers for the condition, called hypersomnia, which is characterized by sleeping too much at night as well as excessive daytime sleepiness, in those with Major Depressive Disorder.

“Hypersomnia, as well as insomnia, have been linked in the development, treatment, and recurrence of depression. Sleep disturbances are also some of the most persistent symptoms in depression...

Mice lacking a set of receptors in one type of neuron in the brain developed compulsive, anti-social behaviors. Parvalbumin-positive interneurons, thought to be important in general cognition and generating certain types of oscillatory wave patterns in the brain. “We found that without this receptor in the parvalbumin cells, mice have many serious behavioral deficits,” says Terrence Sejnowski, head of Salk’s Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, “And a lot of them really mimic closely what we see in schizophrenia.”

Scientists had previously discovered that when molecular signaling was disrupted in these cells during development, the brain’s networks didn’t form correctly...

PINK1 and parkin are key regulators of mitochondrial quality control. Credit: http://www.sciencedirect.com/…/pii/S0166223614000435

>> potential new pathway to treat ALS, other diseases. When mitochondia are damaged, they leak destructive molecules that can cause substantial harm and eventually kill brain cells. PINK1, a protein implicated in Parkinson’s disease is critical for helping cells get rid of dysfunctional mitochondria, by triggering an intricate process called mitophagy that breaks down and removes damaged mitochondria from the cell.

“PINK1 is a flag of damaged mitochondria,” said Richard Youle, Ph.D., the head of the Biochemistry Section of NINDS. “It identifies which mitochondria need to be eliminated to keep cells healthy...