Neurological Disease

In contrast to studies of mice and rats, new research published in eNeuro investigating the effect of methylphenidate (Ritalin) on neuronal activity in monkeys has found no effect of the drug on the prefrontal cortex. The study leaves open the question of how and why Ritalin improves attention in humans. Julio Martinez-Trujillo and colleagues refute their hypothesis…

The medicinal powers of aspirin, digitalis, and the anti-malarial artemisinin all come from plants. A Salk Institute discovery of a potent neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory chemical in a native California shrub may lead to a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease based on a compound found in nature. The research appears in the February 2019 issue of the…

By discovering the culprit behind decreased blood flow in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s, biomedical engineers at Cornell University have made possible promising new therapies for the disease. You know that dizzy feeling you get when, after lying down for an extended period, you stand up a little too quickly? That feeling is caused…

New research reveals RNAs, which are crucial for cells to produce proteins, are also involved in protein aggregation, where proteins do not fold properly and ‘clump’ together into aggregates. If cells cannot clear these away, they become toxic and prevent cells working properly. This discovery, led by scientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG)…

For most of human history Parkinson’s disease (PD) has been a rare disorder. However, demography and the by-products of industrialization are now contributing to an impending Parkinson’s pandemic, according to experts writing in a supplement to the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease. They say that this pandemic can be addressed by the Parkinson’s community forming a “PACT” to prevent…

Researchers at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC have identified a cellular response in mice to mild traumatic brain injuries that may lead to seizures. Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of epilepsy, which is characterized as the repeated occurrence of seizures. No treatments currently interrupt the process that the brain undergoes after…

Patients with Parkinson’s disease are treated with levodopa, which is converted into dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain. In a study published on 18 January in the journal Nature Communications, scientists from the University of Groningen show that gut bacteria can metabolize levodopa into dopamine. And since dopamine cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, this makes…

Using X-ray fluorescence at synchrotrons DESY and ESRF, researchers in the Centre d’Etudes Nucléaires de Bordeaux Gradignan (CNRS/Université de Bordeaux) have demonstrated the consequences of a mutation responsible for a hereditary parkinsonian syndrome: accumulated manganese in the cells appears to disturb protein transport. This work, carried out with colleagues at the University of Texas at…