degeneration

Scientists detect probable genetic cause of some Parkinson's disease cases

...ogressive neurologicdisorder that is caused by the degeneration of nerve cells in theportion of the brain that controls movement. Scientists have longsuspected genetics plays a role in the onset of the disease. In thesestudies, the investigators found that a mutation in the gene LRRK2appears to occur in at least ...

Emory Eye Center Implants Its First Retinal Chips In Patients With Retinitis Pigmentosa

... that is hereditary and causes progressive retinal degeneration in both eyes. It is a general term for a number of diseases that predominantly affect the photoreceptor layer or "light sensing" cells of the retina. Night blindness develops, usually in childhood, followed by loss of peripheral visual field, progres...

Muscle-targeted gene therapy reverses rare muscular dystrophy in mice

...hich are characterized by progressive weakness and degeneration of the skeletal muscles which control movement. The Muscular Dystrophy Association and Genzyme Corporation supported the research. Several forms of Pompe disease affect more than 5,000 people in the U.S. If symptoms appear during infancy, the disea...

Scientists identify genetic pathways essential to RNA interference

...s. An RNAi-based treatment for age-related macular degeneration is already in clinical trials." Ruvkun is a professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. RNAi was originally identified in the C. elegans roundworm and the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, both of which are common model organisms for biolog...

Gene Therapy For Parkinson's Disease Moves Forward In Animals

...ular combination of proteins prevent or accelerate degeneration of the neurons?'?said Nicholas Muzyczka, Ph.D., an eminent scholar and professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at UF's College of Medicine who participated in the research. “For some time Dr. Mandel has been working on the idea of introducin...

Deficiency of growth hormone and IGF-1 reduces cancer and kidney disease, but creates other problems

...sease late in life, but also may lead to cartilage degeneration and impaired memory and learning ability, accordin...e function." The group also found that "cartilage degeneration that normally accompanies aging is accelerated by the absence of growth hormone." The researchers c...

Gene therapy for Parkinson's disease moves forward in animals

...ular combination of proteins prevent or accelerate degeneration of the neurons?'" said Nicholas Muzyczka, Ph.D., an eminent scholar and professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at UF's College of Medicine who participated in the research. "For some time Dr. Mandel has been working on the idea of introduci...

Ophthalmologists Use Artificial Silicon Retina Microchip To Treat Vision Loss

...d for people with retinal diseases such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, which cause blindness and vision impairment in about 10 million Americans. More than one million of these people are legally blind. "As is commonly seen in with retinitis pigmentosa, these patients all have severe narrowing...

Ophthalmologists implant five patients with artificial silicon retina microchip

...d for people with retinal diseases such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, which cause blindness and vision impairment in about 10 million Americans. More than one million of these people are legally blind. "As is commonly seen in with retinitis pigmentosa, these patients all have severe narrowing...

Scientists identify genetic pathways essential to RNA interference

...s. An RNAi-based treatment for age-related macular degeneration is already in clinical trials." Ruvkun is a professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. RNAi was originally identified in the C. elegans roundworm and the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, both of which are common model organisms for biolog...

One hit of crystal meth causes birth defects

...s Wells. "In adults, you can see actual structural degeneration of the brain." U of T doctoral candidates Winnie Jeng and Andrea Wong and undergraduate Ryan Ting-A-Kee were also involved in this study. The research was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The doctoral cand...

Genetic links could unlock clues to leading cause of blindness

Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in older adults,...a genetic link between rhesus monkeys with macular degeneration and humans could unlock secrets about the earliest stages of the disease, when severe vision loss co...

Purdue scientists may have found key to halting spinal cord damage

...w-developing, seemingly untreatable condition: the degeneration of the spinal cord after initial traumatic injury. "Unlike most other parts of the body, spinal cord tissue does not heal after injury," Shi said. "After the initial shock, it actually gets worse. Science has long been aware that some chemicals the ...

New insights into how Huntington's disease attacks the brain

...ted problems with motor control and showed visible degeneration of the target brain cells. In contrast, the second set of mice showed little signs of the disease. "This is the first direct genetic evidence to demonstrate that abnormal interactions between cells can significantly contribute to brain cell death in...

A protein in the eye may prevent immune response and protect eyes from disease

...herapies for blinding eye diseases such as macular degeneration and autoimmune diseases that occur when the immune system goes awry," says Joan Stein-Sreilein, PhD, senior author of the study published in the May issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine and senior scientist at The Schepens Eye Research Insti...

Pinpointing the cause of a neurodegenerative disorder

... with polyglutamine repeat disorders suffer severe degeneration in particular groups of neurons that vary depending on the type of disease. In SCA1, for example, the buildup of Ataxin-1 damages the cerebellar Purkinje cells. As a result of the damage, people with SCA1 lose balance and motor coordination. Loss of ...

U of MN researchers reverse memory loss in mice

...reverse memory loss in mice with significant brain degeneration for the first time, a breakthrough that offers hope to the estimated 4 million people living with Alzheimer's disease. Researchers first manipulated the genetic makeup of the mice so they developed dementia; the mice experienced memory loss that wor...

Muscle repair: Making a good system better, faster; implications for aging, disease

...es, muscle repair processes can't keep up with the degeneration caused by the disease. The plasminogen system may represent a therapeutic target for improving muscle function in these instances. * The plasminogen system likely has multiple roles in muscle repair. Understanding how the plasminogen system work...

Amphetamines reverse Parkinson's disease symptoms in mice

...sure and mood. Parkinson's disease stems from the degeneration of neurons in a brain region that controls movement. That degeneration, in turn, leads to a shortage of the chemical messenger dopamine. The finding that amphetamines can alter movement independently of dopamine opens up new directions in the search ...

Study ties 'new' cell-death mechanism to developmental and degenerative brain disorders

...fect the SCA13 gene. Ataxias are characterized by degeneration of nerve cells in the cerebellum, while the cell death of Alzheimer's disease takes place in the hippocampus of the temporal lobe and that of Parkinson's disease occurs in the substantia nigra of the brain stem. Pulst said the new findings on neuro...

New compound stops brain cell degeneration in Alzheimer's disease

...including neuroinflammation, neuronal and synaptic degeneration and behavioral deficits. The compound also restored normal levels of markers of synaptic dysfunction in the hippocampus, the area of the brain that helps regulate memory and is gradually destroyed in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. T...

Weizmann Institute suggests that immune cells help to maintain cognition and brain cell renewal

...amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and the nerve degeneration that results from trauma or stroke. In their earlier research, Schwartz and her team provided evidence to suggest that T cells directed against CNS components do not attack the brain but instead, recruit the help of the brain's own resident immune c...

New gene reduces retinal degeneration in fruit flies

...ations in this new gene greatly reduce the retinal degeneration caused by a different mutant. They named this new gene Lazaro after the novel Lazarillo de Tormes, in which the orphan boy Làzaro helps a blind man see. Of the molecules known to control TRP channels, a key player is diacylglycerol, known as DAG. DA...

MIT research holds promise for Huntington's treatment

...like "inclusions." The disease is characterized by degeneration in the striatum, an area associated with motor and learning functions, and the cortex. The proteins may disrupt the function of cellular structures known as proteasomes, which perform a "trash can" function for the cell -- disposing of cellular prote...

Dogs keep dying: Many owners unaware of toxic dog food

...liver unique for aflatoxin toxicity, such as fatty degeneration of individual cells. "Even if dogs show no signs of illness, if they have eaten the affected food, they should have blood tests submitted to detect liver injury," Center stressed. "Dogs that show positive results on any of the above tests should be...

Bone and cartilage growth to blame for heart valve disease

...e observations indicated that the process of valve degeneration is instead an active process, linked to inflammation and cellular growth," says Robert Bonow, MD, co-director of the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. "The exciting news is that this line of research suggests that there may be medical treatments in th...

Hap1 protein links circulating insulin to brain circuits that regulate feeding behavior in mice

...at after birth. In addition, deleting Hap1 caused degeneration of some neurons in the hypothalamus. In order to find out more about the function of Hap1 and the neural pathways it employs, a team of scientists from Emory, The Rockefeller University, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, and the University...

Brain's own cannabis compound protects against inflammation

...d to new drugs to treat the inflammation and brain degeneration from MS or other such disorders. In an article in the January 5, 2006, issue of Neuron, the researchers reported experiments showing how the endocannabinoid anandamide (AEA) protects brain cells from inflammation. Such a role in the brain's immune s...

'Prosthetic' retinal cells let blind mice see light

...to restore vision in humans with inherited retinal degeneration disorders. For one thing, they said, they have not...f inner retinal neurons triggered by photoreceptor degeneration has raised some concerns for the retinal-based rescue strategy after the death of photoreceptors," w...

For Stanford scientists, RNAi gene therapy takes two steps forward, one step back

...Ai therapies now in human trials - two for macular degeneration and one for a type of pneumonia. However, these studies involve simply infusing the RNAi molecules into the eye or lung. The RNAi effects in these therapies aren't permanent. Instead, patients may need to receive repeat doses of the RNAi. If RNAi is...

Matrilin-3 gene discovered to prevent onset of osteoarthritis

...sociation between increased bone density and joint degeneration is not known. Our data show that matrilin-3 defici...y of osteoarthritis ?that the disease is caused by degeneration from an abnormal skeletal structure. "Our study shows that even in those normal looking skeletons,...

Mechanism identified for promising neurological drug

...sis (ALS), all of which cause brain and nerve cell degeneration as a consequence of inflammation. However, says Swanson, "it's really been unclear up till now how minocycline works to prevent the inflammatory response." Swanson credits the study's lead author, Conrad Alano, PhD, assistant professor of neurology...

MIT 'seeing machine' offers hope to blind

...sion loss, including diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration (the fastest growing cause of blindness), and visual field loss," said Cavallerano, a coauthor of the paper and another of Goldring's doctors. Participants used the machine to view 10 examples of Goldring's visual language. A majority - six - inter...

Neurons grown from embryonic stem cells restore function in paralyzed rats

...shown that stem cells can halt spinal motor neuron degeneration and restore function in animals with spinal cord injury or ALS. However, this study is the first to show that transplanted neurons can form functional connections with the adult mammalian nervous system, the researchers say. They used both electrophy...

Protein connections: A network to understand disease

...zed by loss of balance and coordination because of degeneration of specific nerve cells. The concept can be used t...," said Lim. All of them caused the same kind of degeneration in nerve cells, even though they were different genes making different proteins. "We felt they mus...

Discovery of agile molecular motors could aid in treating motor neuron diseases

...r's lab found that a mutation in dynactin leads to degeneration of motor neurons, the hallmark of motor neuron dis...roteins in the cell, which may in turn lead to the degeneration of the neuron. Scientists are now finding that many other molecular motors are remarkably flexible...

Salk and Stanford teams join forces to reveal two paths of neurodegeneration

...earchers observed, These findings show that axon degeneration after injury or developmental pruning requires dif...the same axons in newborn Wlds mice and found that degeneration was slowed. "When I saw RGC axons in the superior colliculus that appeared morphologically perfect f...

Taking the wrinkles out of motoneuronal disease

...wrinkle treatment. Motoneuronal diseases cause a degeneration of the nerve pathways controlling muscle activity. The diseases are severe and physically debilitating disorders which lead toprogressive weakness and wasting of muscles. Many of the diseases are incurable. Dr Meunier is developing botox to selectiv...

'Molecular assassin' targets disease gene

...n cancers and blindness due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy are likely to be among the first uses for the drug. AMD is the most common cause of blindness in Australia (Macular Degeneration Foundation). The experimental drug has already been shown to be effective on skin cancers...

'Smart' genetic therapy helps the body to heal itself

...dence of about 1 in every 6,000 newborns. Due to degeneration of the motor neurons in the spinal cord patients develop muscle weakness and atrophy of the legs, arms and trunk. In patients with SMA the survival motor neuron genes (SMN1) is deleted, but they all carry a copy gene (SMN2). However, this only pro...

New angiogenesis finding may help fight cancer growth

...he more severe ("wet") form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Wet AMD occurs when leaky blood vessels form in the retina. Along with a similar growth of new blood vessels in diabetes, it is the major cause of blindness in older adults. But the "holy grail" of angiogenesis inhibition concerns cancer tre...

Why Popeye only has eyes for spinach

...ght to protect the macula from age-related macular degeneration or AMD, a disease that studies in the UK have show...some people are susceptible to age-related macular degeneration but warn the incidence is likely to rise as the population ages. In collaboration with Tinsley Oph...

New biologic treatment for tennis elbow may replace surgery for chronic sufferers

...ong gripping or repetitive wrist motions. It is a degeneration of the tendon above the elbow that controls the movements of the wrist and hand. Treatments such as rest, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, bracing, physical therapy, and injections of corticosteroids (cortisone shots) are often used but recent ...

Study offers window into human behavior, brain disease

...s makes them vulnerable." Notably, cell-specific degeneration is a unifying feature of all the neurodegenerative diseases. Dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra region of the brain deteriorate in Parkinson's disease, motor neurons of the spinal cord and motor cortex degenerate in ALS and specific m...

Brains can recover from alcoholic damage but patients should stop drinking as soon as possible

... applied to evaluate the degree and speed of brain degeneration in illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease or multiple sclerosis. Here, we show that neuroimaging can also demonstrate and quantify brain regeneration in substance and function. Data analysis is crucial to these endeavours, and modern software such as ...

Amateur boxing linked to brain cell injury

...ins increase in disorders with neuronal and axonal degeneration and damage, and the increase is known to correlate with the size of the brain lesion," the authors write. "When applied to the results of this study, the increases in neurofilament protein and total tau probably reflect damage to neuronal axons from...

Transplanted photoreceptor precursor cells restore visual function in mice with retinal degeneration

...ed into three different types of mice with retinal degeneration caused by distinct genetic defects involving malfu...degenerative diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, it is the loss of photoreceptors that leads to blindness. Understandi...

German researchers develop first non-invasive test to measure skin aging

...ng methods for imaging collagen and elastin, whose degeneration causes the appearance of wrinkles and the progressive loss of skin smoothness. The technique measures relative amounts of collagen and elastin by a single factor, which can be positive or negative, like temperatures. Higher values of the factor corre...

Growth factor stimulates rapid extension of key motor neurons in brain

... may someday lead to ways of treating the neuronal degeneration of diseases like ALS, regenerating cells for the treatment of spinal cord injury, and to the potential replacement of neurons using precursors or 'neural stem cells'," says Macklis, who is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. ...

Single molecule extends fat mice lives by reversing gene pathways associated with disease in obese

... subtle changes in the abundance of fatty lesions, degeneration and inflammation. On a relative scale of 0-4, the assessment produced mean scores of 1.6 for the SD group, 3.2 for the HC group, and 1.2 for the HCR group. The researchers also found that the livers of mice at 18 months of age on the HC diet were ...

Prion disease treatable if caught early

...ce, Mallucci and colleagues found that early brain degeneration can be reversed if prions are depleted in neurons. In the new studies published in Neuron, they established that cognitive and behavioral impairments—which appear early in humans with prion disease—can be reversed if prion depletion is done early....

RNAi shows promise in gene therapy, Stanford researcher says

...ene therapy trials now under way - two in macular degeneration and one in RSV pneumonia - the technique Kay pioneered may be among the first to find widespread use for treating human diseases. "We've worked on a gene therapeutic approach against viral hepatitis for about 10 years and this is the first thing w...

Researchers hot on the trail of brain cell degeneration

...pathway in neurons. The pathway is a factor in the degeneration of brain cells, which in turn plays an important role in neurological conditions and diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy and stroke. Courtney and his team, based at the A. I. Virtanen Institute of the University of Kuopio, joined forces w...

Penn researchers link cell's protein recycling systems

...t increasing the activity of HDAC6 can prevent the degeneration normally associated with accumulating old, damaged proteins. The researchers suggest further that when proteasomes are impaired or overwhelmed, which leads to accumulation of defective proteins, HDAC6 facilitates delivery to the autophagy-lysosomal s...