Gene for familial dysautonomia discovered
Familial dysautonomia is a neurodegenerative disease that mainly targets Ashkenazi Jews. The disease, which affects one in every 3,600 members of this group, impairs the development of the sensory and...
View ArticleFirst domino falls in research on sense of touch
Unlike the other four senses, touch is ubiquitous, involving sensory terminals dispersed over the outside and on the inside of the body. This system encodes a variety of sensations in addition to...
View ArticleHigh levels of Epstein-Barr virus antibodies in women linked to risk of...
Multiple sclerosis is a chronic degenerative disease of the central nervous system. Nationwide, there are an estimated 250,000 to 350,000 people with MS. Researchers have long wondered how MS develops...
View ArticleHormone leptin tied to fat breakdown in muscle
Research has shown that leptin is an important hormone with a hand in many metabolic processes. It undoubtedly has widespread effects that may influence diabetes as well as obesity. Recent work from...
View ArticleGenes for a better brain found
Scientists from Harvard Medical School and the California Institute of Technology discovered a gene has been guiding the formation of nervous systems since the first fishlike animals with backbones...
View ArticleBrake on Axon regrowth discovered
Since nerve cell axons in the mature central nervous system do not regrow, neurologists have no way of fully treating paralysis due to injury. “About a hundred years ago, people started asking why it...
View ArticleFirst view of many neurons processing information in living brain
A Harvard Medical School (HMS) research team used a new technique to obtain the first close-up look at the neural circuits that produce vision in cats and rats. “Put simply, this technique allows us to...
View ArticleDecoding the babel of brain cells
If brain cell messages could be separated from the “noise” of other brain activity and clearly understood, researchers would be closer to repairing damage caused by a number of nervous system diseases...
View ArticleGene clue to brain asymmetry revealed on right side
Although many assumed that the asymmetry-producing genes, when found, would be more highly expressed on the left side of the brain than the right, Sun Tao, Christopher A. Walsh, and their colleagues...
View ArticleBarrier found to nerve regeneration
Scientists have long dreamed of prompting adult neurons of the central nervous system to regenerate. But these cells have the deck stacked against them in several ways. Molecules from the myelin sheath...
View ArticleDendritic spines don’t go with the flow
Neurons receive incoming signals through synapses at hundreds of dendritic spines, the lollipop-shaped structures with thin necks and bubblelike heads that stud the surface of dendrites. Each spine...
View ArticleHMS researchers isolate nerve growth compound
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston have isolated a molecule that stimulates the regrowth of damaged adult nerve fibers, providing new hope for those suffering from...
View ArticleMedical School researchers isolate nerve growth compound
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston have isolated a molecule that stimulates the regrowth of damaged adult nerve fibers, providing new hope for those suffering from...
View ArticleHarvard Medical School signs agreement with Merck to develop potential...
Harvard Medical School announced May 23, 2006 that is has signed a multimillion-dollar license agreement with Merck & Co. Inc. to develop potential therapies for macular degeneration, an eye...
View ArticleGrowth of spinal nerves is improved
Nerves that control the highest level of voluntary movements have been isolated and secrets of their growth revealed for the first time. During development, these nerves extend themselves from the...
View ArticleThe nose knows
Harvard researchers have illuminated how the brain processes information about odor, linking a temporal pattern of electrical spikes traveling through the nervous system with specific smells and...
View ArticleMaking the worms turn
To biophysicist Aravinthan Samuel, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans provides a pathway to understanding the brain and nervous system, first of the worm, then of higher animals, and even, perhaps,...
View ArticleDeciding to go left or right
For decades, scientists have associated binary decision making — opting to go left or right — with higher-ranking animals, including humans. A team of Harvard researchers, however, is rewriting that...
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First Santiago Ramón y Cajal Professor is named
Jeff Lichtman, the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a world leader in using advanced imaging techniques to study the wiring of the brain and nervous system, has been...
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