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Tag: "signal" at biology news

Migratory songbirds have a specialized night-vision brain area

...expression of two genes called ZENK and c-fos that signal activity in a particular brain region. The researchers found that the night-migratory species showed strikingly high activity in a particular cluster of cells located adjacent to a known visual pathway. According to Jarvis, what excited the research...

Secret of smallpox's success may lead to bioterror cure

...the virus. Because the virus's double-stranded RNA signal is very clear, the immune response tends to be very strong when the quantity of the uncloaked virus is high. According to Jacobs, the uncloaked vaccinia virus has the potential to be useful for developing novel post-exposure vaccines for other dange...

Researchers make surprise discovery that some neurons can transmit three signals at once

...e and enhancing brain activity, or they dispatch a signal that quells a neuron's activity. So, when researchers at the University of Pittsburgh discovered that immature rat brain cells could fire a simultaneous three-punch salvo ?three neurotransmitters bursting out of a single cell -- it was a finding they...

Researchers develop assay that could be applied to drug screening

...own-regulation, nutrient uptake and maintenance of signal transmission across nerve cell junctions. Mis-regulation of CME has been implicated in some types of cancer and neuro-degenerative disease and the protein machinery of CME has been co-opted by several viruses, including rabies, as a means of entry in...

Brain May Be Less Plastic Than Hoped

...n in the primary visual cortex. Without any visual signal to interpret, the cortical area corresponding to each monkey's blind spot fell silent, generating no activity. The team measured the size and shape of each of these cortical quiet spots. They placed the lightly anesthetized monkeys into a fMRI machi...

Master gene controls healing of skin in fruit flies and mammals

...sponse after it receives an as-of-yet unidentified signal produced in cells adjacent to the injury." In its study, Jane's team found that, like their fruit fly counterparts, mice lacking grainyhead have a much more permeable skin than normal mice and have deficient wound repair. Both groups point out in th...

Mouse with designer liver has enhanced glucose tolerance, insulin response

... that Gab1 acts as a negative regulator on insulin signal strength in the liver," said Dr. Feng. "In this work, by making a new liver-specific gene knockout mouse model, we found a novel balancing mechanism for control of liver insulin signaling. Our observation might be instrumental for understanding bette...

Molecular thermometers on skin cells detect heat and camphor

...ecting warm temperatures. It is not known how this signal is communicated to the brain, since keratinocytes, unlike neurons, have no direct link with the central nervous system. Keratinocytes do, however, touch nerve fibers, and it may be through these contacts that the signals are communicated. Investigati...

Structure-building cell signals also may influence learning and memory

...maintaining memory and learning. The strength of a signal through a nerve cell synapse can be enhanced (by increasing the number of receptors) or diminished (by a receptor decrease). "The balance has to be optimal, since too much memory activation can also be a problem," said Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi's team, w...

Researchers find gene that may be at root of potato blight

...larms go off," he said. "This gene (Avr3a) sends a signal alerting the plant that it is infected by the pathogen." Phytophthora infestans is the pathogen that causes late blight. For decades, controlling this disease has involved regular applications of agrochemicals, Kamoun said. But some experts fear th...

Fox Chase study shows that weakened T-cell receptor signals change T-cell lineage

...to the gamma-delta lineage. However, weakening the signal promotes alpha-beta lineage development. "The signal strength determines the level of expression of early growth response (Egr) proteins, with cells choo...

Remote control flies? Fly behavior controlled by laser light

...receivers" that allow them to recognize an outside signal like a laser light pulse and translate that signal into the electrical signals characteristic of nerve-cell activity. To accomplish this, Miesenböck a...

Natural Killers Could Lead to New Hepatitis Treatments

... flow. They halt only when they receive a chemical signal to unleash an immune-system assault on marauding m...ction, the cell would stop in the vicinity of that signal and provide cytokine signals that would attract other inflammatory cells that destroy the invading m...

A probe, not an echo

...he imaged tissue. A sophisticated coding/decoding signal scheme recognizes a small "sweet spot" of the signal coming from the opposite transducer, and only that transducer, and ignores all other pulses transmit...

15 generations of untrained jocks, couch potatoes show big physiological adaptations

...various genes involved that provide the underlying signal for "why" some subjects become more athletic, whil...nd/or signaling mechanisms that prompt the initial signal for the differential abilities to run on a treadmill without training, as well as the mechanisms res...

New miniaturised chip dramatically reduces time taken for DNA analysis

...l current. The sensor converts this current into a signal that can be seen by the person controlling the tests, making him aware there are bacteria. Also, because the sensors are very small and easy to manipulate, it is possible to assemble a set of sensors that can collect data simultaneously and deduce in...

Vitamin A's paradoxical role in influencing symmetry during embryonic development revealed

...eagues found that retinoic acid (vitamin A) is the signal that buffers the influence of asymmetric cues in early-stage embryonic stem cells and allows these cells to develop symmetrically. In the absence of retinoic acid, the exterior of our bodies would develop asymmetrically, with the result being that o...

Immune system's distress signal tells bacteria when to strike back

...ger an immune response ?in the bowel. "These could signal the bug," said Alverdy, "then the bug strikes back and then the inflammation process snowballs." Because the bacteria in this case are "normal flora," people with no real infection develop a chronic disease. The battles between pathogens and their h...

Enzyme's newly discovered role may make it target for arthritis treatment

...arrange and cluster on the cell surface can send a signal back into the cell that modifies the cell's behavior, allowing it to do things like secrete inflammatory factors," Pham explains. "The proteases' ability to affect integrin rearrangement is dependent on their catalytic activity, and that's an ability...

Stem cells in bone marrow replenish mouse ovaries

...st that the ovary itself is sending out a chemical signal to the bone marrow, readying the progenitor cells to travel to the ovary and restock its egg cell supply. Although it is not yet clear whether the egg cells (oocytes) generated following bone marrow transplants can mature and be fertilized to give r...

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