The nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous system contains the brain and spinal cord.
The non-specific lethal (NSL) complex is a chromatin-associated factor that has been shown in both fruit flies and mammals to regulate the expression of thousands of genes. Abrogation of the NSL genes causes the organism to die, which gives rise to the complex’s unusual name.
To understand the full relationship between brain activity and behavior, scientists have needed a way to map this relationship for all of the neurons across a whole brain-;a so far insurmountable challenge.
Most of us who've reached middle age have noticed a slowing in memory and cognition, but scientists don't have a clear picture of the molecular changes that take place in the brain to cause it.
An antibody in single-chain fragment variable (scFv) format that binds to the powerful opioid carfentanil was shown to reverse signs of carfentanil overdose in preclinical tests conducted by scientists at Scripps Research.
Insilico Medicine ("Insilico"), a clinical-stage end-to-end generative artificial intelligence (AI) drug discovery company, has achieved a significant breakthrough in the application of multiple generative AI models and AlphaFold structures for drug discovery.
Researchers from New York University have created a method that discovers and labels neurons throughout development, which has allowed them to identify novel cell types in the visual system of flies.
Researchers have developed methods to study and manipulate areas of the brain, though many of those methods are restricted by the limited depth that light can reach within the brain. A multidisciplinary team at Washington University in St. Louis plans to overcome that limitation by integrating ultrasound with genetics to precisely modify neurons in the brain.
A University of California, Irvine-led team of researchers working at the Center for Neural Circuit Mapping find links between brain disorders and dysfunction of newly identified inhibitory brain cell types.
Scientists at Tohoku University have discovered the critical role that lactate plays in helping neural stem cells develop into specialized neurons, a process dubbed neuronal differentiation.
Gastrulation, the process where an embryo reorganizes itself from a hollow sphere into a multilayered structure, is considered a "black box" of human development.
Research of over 22,000 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has for the first time discovered a genetic variant linked with speedier progression of the disease, a buildup of disability that can deprive patients of their mobility and independence over time.
A study of more than 22,000 people with multiple sclerosis has discovered the first genetic variant associated with faster disease progression, which can rob patients of their mobility and independence over time.
A group from Nagoya University in Japan has discovered that when the diet of nematodes, tiny worms measuring about a millimeter or less in length, includes the bacteria Lactobacillus reuteri, the weakening of associative learning ability caused by aging does not occur.
The brain and the digestive tract are in constant communication, relaying signals that help to control feeding and other behaviors.
A University of California, Irvine-led team of researchers have discovered that extracts from plants used by the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations peoples in their traditional botanical medicine practices are able to rescue the function of ion channel proteins carrying mutations that cause human Episodic Ataxia.
A team of researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has successfully engineered an albino strain of Euprymna berryi, the hummingbird bobtail squid.
Alternative splicing, a clever way a cell generates many different variations of messenger RNAs -; single-stranded RNAs involved in protein synthesis -; and proteins from the same stretch of DNA, plays an important role in molecular biology.
Human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV) introduces a copy of its DNA into human immune cells as part of its life cycle. Some of these newly infected immune cells can subsequently enter an inactive, latent state for an extended length of time, which is known as HIV latency.
Each cell has a finite set of instructions inscribed in its DNA. Life, on the other hand, is unpredictable, and when the situation changes, animals must change.
Researchers at Kyushu University have uncovered the mechanisms of a fundamental yet critically under-looked phase in brain development: synaptic pruning.