Tampa, Fla. (Jan. 21, 2009) – Early attempts at islet cell transplantation to treat diabetes date to the nineteenth century, decades before the discovery of insulin in the 1930s. In recent years, research has focused on the anatomical sites best suited for hosting transplanted islet cells. Experimental sites have included the spleen, liver, peritoneal cavity, omentum, subcutaneous tissues and gastric submucosa. However, many transplant attempts at a variety of anatomical sites have failed because of a variety of complications.
Brain
BOCA RATON, FL (January 21, 2009) – For the brain to achieve its intricate functions such as perception, action, attention and decision making, neural regions have to work together yet still retain their specialized roles. Excess or lack of timely coordination between brain areas lies at the core of a number of psychiatric and neurological disorders such as epilepsy, schizophrenia, autism, Parkinson's disease, sleep disorders and depression. How the brain is coordinated is a complex and difficult problem in need of new theoretical insights as well as new methods of investigation.
PHILADELPHIA – Studies at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine on brain electrical signaling offer a fresh perspective on vertebrate evolution, provide additional evidence supporting Darwinian views of evolution, and may also lead to more effective treatment of epileptic seizures in infants. Researchers discovered how evolutionary changes produced a series of improvements in molecules generating electrical signals in nerves between 550 and 400 million years ago.
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Slices of living human brain tissue are helping scientists learn which drugs can block the waves of death that engulf and engorge brain cells following a stroke.
It's called anoxic depolarization and it primarily results from the brain getting insufficient blood and oxygen after a stroke, says Dr. Sergei Kirov, neuroscientist in the Medical College of Georgia Schools of Medicine and Graduate Studies.
Language in humans has evolved culturally rather than genetically, according to a study by UCL (University College London) and US researchers. By modelling the ways in which genes for language might have evolved alongside language itself, the study showed that genetic adaptation to language would be highly unlikely, as cultural conventions change much more rapidly than genes. Thus, the biological machinery upon which human language is built appears to predate the emergence of language.
An enzyme that lives in MRSA and helps the dangerous bacterium to grow and spread infection through the human body has been visualised for the first time, according to a study out today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Now, armed with detailed information about the structure of this enzyme, researchers hope to design new drugs that will seek it out and disable it, providing a new way of combating MRSA and other bacterial infections.
Giving pregnant mothers magnesium sulphate when they are at risk of very preterm birth can help protect their babies from cerebral palsy, according to an international review of research involving the University of Adelaide, Australia.
The findings of this review – published today on the international research website The Cochrane Library – could help decrease the incidence of this disabling condition, which affects one in 500 newborn babies overall and one in 10 very premature babies (less than 28 weeks gestation).
Female promiscuity appears to have triggered changes in the type of sperm a male produces, according to new research on fish from central Africa.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, examines how competition for reproduction influences the sperm of many species of African cichlids. These fish have extremely diverse mating behaviours, ranging from strict monogamy to species where females mate with many males in quick succession.
MADISON, WI, January 19, 2009 -- It started innocently enough. A collaborative research course taught at one university led to conversations about graduate teaching among colleagues residing at different universities. Exploratory meetings followed and, before any of them quite realized it, six faculty members at three universities spanning four time zones across the U.S. were teaching a graduate course together.
St. Louis, Jan. 21, 2009 — Many older adults worry — a lot. Almost one in 10 Americans over age 60 suffer from an anxiety disorder that causes them to worry excessively about normal things — like health, finances, disability and family. Although antidepressant drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) can improve anxiety symptoms in younger adults, little has been known about their effects in older people.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Individuals with the so-called "warrior gene" display higher levels of aggression in response to provocation, according to new research co-authored by Rose McDermott, professor of political science at Brown University. In the experiment, which is the first to examine a behavioral measure of aggression in response to provocation, subjects were asked to cause physical pain to an opponent they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of hot sauce.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — There may be a simple way to address racial bias: Help people improve their ability to distinguish between faces of individuals of a different race.
By tweaking a system in the ear that limits how much sound is heard, a global team of researchers has discovered one alteration that shows that the ability of the ear to turn itself down contributes to protecting against permanent hearing loss. The report appears this week in PLoS Biology.
Magnesium sulphate protects very premature babies from cerebral palsy, a new study shows. The findings of this Cochrane Review could help reduce incidence of the disabling condition, which currently affects around one in every 500 newborn babies overall, but up to one-in-ten very premature babies (< 28 weeks of gestation).
A range of complex surgical operations necessary to treat stroke victims, confront hardened arteries or address blockages in the bloodstream are about to be made safer as researchers from the Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory at Australia's Monash University put the final touches to the design of micro-motors small enough to be injected into the human bloodstream.