Astrocyte News and Research

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The Secret to Staying Awake May Lie in Astrocytes

New animal research suggests that little-studied brain cells known as astrocytes are major players in controlling sleep need and may someday help humans go without sleep for longer without negative consequences such as mental fatigue and impaired physical health.

18 Aug 2023

New Mechanism to Maintain Astrocyte-Neuron Communication

Neurons and astrocytes are the two types of cells required by the brain to enjoy the scent of morning coffee and freshly baked cookies or to discern the warning smell of something burning.

16 Jun 2023

Game-Changing Research Shows Astrocytes as Key Regulators of Alzheimer's Disease Progression

Why do some people develop Alzheimer's disease while others don't? And, even more puzzlingly, why do many individuals whose brains are chock-full of toxic amyloid aggregates-;a telltale sign of Alzheimer's brain pathology-;never go on to develop Alzheimer's-associated dementias?

30 May 2023

Glycosylation Enzyme Regulates the Formation of Neurons and Astrocytes From Neural Stem Cells

The MGAT5 glycosylation enzyme plays a crucial role in brain development, according to a study by University of California, Irvine researchers, a discovery that may contribute to new therapeutic purposes for neural stem cells.

17 May 2023

Neuronal Activity Necessary and Sufficient to Drive Astrocyte Development

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have unraveled the processes that give astrocytes, the most abundant glial cell in the brain, their special bushy shape, which is fundamental for brain function.

27 Apr 2023

Abnormal Immune Activity in Astrocytes Causes Dementia-Related Cognitive Deficits

People with dementia have protein build-up in astrocytes that may trigger abnormal antiviral activity and memory loss, according to a preclinical study by a team of Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

21 Apr 2023

Astrocytes Pull the Handbrake to Drive the Brain to a More Relaxed State

A brimming inbox on Monday morning sets your head spinning. You take a moment to breathe and your mind clears enough to survey the emails one by one.

5 Apr 2023

Wearable microscopes produce real-time images of mouse spinal cord activity

The spinal cord acts as a messenger, carrying signals between the brain and body to regulate everything from breathing to movement.

23 Mar 2023

Significance of astrocyte–neuron interactions in fine-tuning brain function

Humans learn to handle a variety of skilled movements throughout their lives, from driving a car to swinging a tennis racket. Neurons are not the only ones who implement this learning, but a new study from The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT shows that astrocytes play an important role as well.

From Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 14 Mar 2023

Novel platform identifies genes that control biologic processes

Inflammatory neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), can arise when cell-to-cell communication between cells in the central nervous system (CNS) goes awry. But exactly how this cellular crosstalk leads to the molecular changes that drive disease remain unknown.

13 Mar 2023

Synthetic hydrogels provide an effective scaffold for brain tissue growth

Synthetic hydrogels were shown to provide an effective scaffold for neuronal tissue growth in areas of brain damage, providing a possible approach for brain tissue reconstruction.

24 Feb 2023

Inhibiting astrocyte hyperactivity can reverse cognitive deficits associated with social deprivation

Here is an important reason to stay in touch with friends and family: social isolation causes memory and learning deficits and other behavioral changes.

15 Feb 2023

Tackling epilepsy with a potential new drug

One of the epilepsy types that are most prevalent worldwide is temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Although there are symptomatic medications available, one-third of TLE patients are still not responding to the current course of treatment, necessitating the urgent need for new drug targets.

25 Nov 2022

Astrocyte abnormalities may play a pivotal role in causing ASD symptoms

Abnormalities in a type of brain cell called astrocytes may play a pivotal role in causing some behavioral symptoms of autism spectrum disorders, according to a preclinical study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

22 Apr 2022

Transcriptomic analysis of Alzheimer's patients reveals early organelle dysfunction in astrocytes

An international group of researchers led by the UAB analyzed the genes that are expressed in neurons and astrocytes based on data from 800 individuals and compared what happens in Alzheimer's patients and in people without diagnosed dementia.

21 Mar 2022

Astrocyte networks are essential for spatial learning and memory formation, study shows

Astrocytes form large networks of interconnected cells in the central nervous system. When these cell-to-cell couplings are disrupted in the brain of adult mice, the animals are no longer able to store spatial information.

9 Mar 2022

Protein appears key to the function and survival of brain cells most impacted by glaucoma

A ubiquitous protein called sigma 1 receptor, which is known to protect cells from stress, appears key to the function and survival of the neurons most impacted by glaucoma, scientists report.

2 Mar 2022

Glial cells in the heart play critical role in cardiac development and function

Glial cells in the heart help regulate heart rate and rhythm, and drive its development in the embryo, according to a new study publishing November 18th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Nina Kikel-Coury, Cody Smith and colleagues at the University of Notre Dame.

19 Nov 2021

New insight into how neurons and astrocytes work together to form healthy synapses

Brain cells called astrocytes play a key role in helping neurons develop and function properly, but there's still a lot scientists don't understand about how astrocytes perform these important jobs.

26 Oct 2021

'Mini brains' allow researchers to study a fatal, untreatable neurological disorder

Cambridge researchers have developed 'mini brains' that allow them to study a fatal and untreatable neurological disorder causing paralysis and dementia – and for the first time have been able to grow these for almost a year.

22 Oct 2021