Tag: "sensory" at biology news

Old memory traces in brain may trigger chronic pain

...rian said. “To control it, they tried to stop the sensory input to the brain. ”We are saying there’s a cogni...p in the prefrontal cortex. By contrast, the acute sensory pain of the burned finger appears in the sensory part of the thalamus. Apkarian also found that ...

Newly found sensing system enables certain bacteria to resist human immune defenses

...uch as those that cause plague and salmonellosis—a sensory and gene regulation system named PhoP/PhoQ protects invading bacteria, and scientists believe if they develop a better understanding of this system they could develop new drugs that are more effective at protecting people from infection. Likewise,...

Reconstructing the biology of extinct species: A new approach

...e mechanism linking a species' locomotion with the sensory systems that process information about its environment," says Alan Walker, Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology and Biology at Penn State University, one of the team's leaders. The researchers studied 91 separate primate species, including all taxono...

Turn-ons and turn-offs for neurons

...emical and electrical impulses to compute incoming sensory information and integrate it via distinct brain regions. With 20,000 - 25,000 genes in our genome, most also expressed in neurons, there is now little doubt that neurons respond to challenging environments by adjusting the expression of genes for app...

Experimental gene therapy 'abolishes' arthritis pain and lessens joint damage

... that interfere with key inflammatory receptors on sensory nerve cells within the CNS. Joining Kyrkanides in the publication from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry were co-authors J. Edward Puzas, Ph.D., Donald & Mary Clark Professor of Orthopaedics, M. Kerry O'Banion, M.D.,...

Researchers use MRI to predict recovery after spinal cord injury

... between the ages of 17 and 96. Complete motor and sensory SCI was seen in 26 patients, incomplete SCI was seen in 51 patients, and 22 patients were neurologically intact upon admission. One patient could not be classified. The majority of the patients had been injured in motor vehicle accidents. MRI exam...

New research shows sharks use their noses and bodies to locate smells

...conditions – fluorescent and infrared – and in two sensory conditions – with their lateral lines intact or lesioned by streptomycin," explained Gardiner. According to the researchers, streptomycin, an antibiotic, interferes with the normal function of motion sensitive "hair cells," the receptor cells of ...

Detecting cold, feeling pain: Study reveals why menthol feels fresh

...target for treating pain. "By understanding how sensory receptors work, how thresholds for temperature are...t" the gene that synthesizes the receptor, both in sensory neurons in cell culture and in mice. The cells in culture were unresponsive to cooling agents, inclu...

Scripps research team sheds light on long-sought cold sensation gene

...RPM8 codes for an ion channel found at the tips of sensory neurons, which innervate the skin. When opened, io...lowing through TRPM8 lead to the activation of the sensory neuron, which in turn sends a signal to the brain. The Patapoutian team’s results support the idea t...

Nitric oxide: Key to cardiovascular and pulmonary function and drug effectiveness

...g factors such as adrenaline, as well such diverse sensory signals as odorants and light. The activation of these receptors leads to the propagation of intracellular signals. Once activated the receptors are quickly turned-off by an enzyme called a G protein-coupled receptor kinase. This process is called de...

New knowledge improves rice quality

...ng and eating qualities of rice and how to measure sensory qualities more accurately. The role of important substances such as starch and amylose in cooking rice and how they are measured. "IRRI is very fortunate to have a strong foundation of previous rice quality research to build on,"...

Dinosaur hearing, listening to muscle noise, quieter cubicles

...tween the body mass of a species and the size of a sensory structure in the inner ear known as the basilar papilla. Small, lightweight species with a short basilar membrane can hear higher frequencies than larger species with a longer basilar membrane. Analyzing these and other variables, the researchers ...

Get a whiff of this: Smell test could sniff out serious health problems

...n’s disease and other problems outside the typical sensory loss associated with aging. The Sniff Magnitude Test (SMT), an invention of UC Psychology Professor Robert Frank and Professor Emeritus Robert Gesteland of the UC Department of Cell Biology, is now under further development with the WR Medical Electr...

Noise echoes in cell communications

...ight exploit randomness for important processes of sensory processing and cell to cell communication. In terms of hearing, the Rutgers-Camden research team's mathematical theory improves previous knowledge by offering a single explanation of the properties of noise in hearing under different conditions. ...

2 brains -- 1 thought

...pattern of neural activity when exposed to similar sensory input. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for ... of the neuronal activity. When the brain receives sensory input, calculates or remembers, it processes information encoded in a series of neuronal impulses in...

Scientists identify molecular cause for one form of deafness

...d into bundles by espin, a linker protein found in sensory cells, including cochlear hair cells. Genetic mutations in espin's F-actin binding sites are linked to deafness in mice and humans. "We found the structure of the bundles changes dramatically when normal espin is replaced with espin mutants that ca...

Study shows isolation of stem cells may lead to a treatment for hearing loss

...in humans due to loss or faulty development of the sensory ‘microphones?(hair cells) inside the ear ?the cochlea. Lost hair cells are not replaced and people exposed to these conditions face permanent hearing loss. Identification of the stem cells from the adult cochlea would be a major step forward to devel...

Mimicking how the brain recognizes street scenes

...this research is essential for designing augmented sensory prostheses, such as one that could replicate the computations carried by damaged nerves from the retina. "And once you have a good model of how the human brain works," Serre explained, "you can break it to mimic a brain disorder." One brain disorder ...

New study challenges 'critical period' in childhood vision development

...ng mechanisms are significantly dependent on early sensory stimulation. Sinha and his colleagues posit that w...ty remains even after several years of compromised sensory experience. The results of this study provide an argument for even late-stage blindness treatments ...

Newborn brains grow vision and movement regions first

...regions of the brain that control vision and other sensory information grow dramatically in the first few mon...ack regions of the brain, which control vision and sensory integration, grew significantly faster than the prefrontal region, which controls abstract reasoning...

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