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Posts Tagged ‘Stem cell’

Semaphorins integrate the sweetness and development of our cortical 6-layer cake

Posted in RLN, SEMA(1-7), tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia For a great many reasons, research on mental illness is focused on the frontal cortex.  Its just a small part of the brain, and certainly, many things can go wrong in other places during brain/cognitive development, but, it remains a robust finding, that when the frontal cortex is not working well, individuals [...]

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rs6265 moderates my hippocampus’ response to stress

Posted in BDNF, tagged , , , , , , , on September 17, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Image by digitalART2 via Flickr In Robert Sapolsky’s book, “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers“, he details a biological feedback system wherein psychological stress leads to the release of glucocorticoids that have beneficial effects in the near-term but negative effects (e.g. ulcers, depression, etc.) in the long-term.  The key to getting the near-term benefits and avoiding [...]

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Human brain looks the other way while ancient genomes romp and play

Posted in Intronic or repetitive sequences, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image by Kevin Steele via Flickr For more than a decade, we’ve known that at least 95% of the human genome is junk – or junque – if you’re offended by the thought that “you” emerged from a single cell whose genome is mostly a vast pile of crap – or crappe – if you [...]

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BDNF key to stem-cell mediated brain repair

Posted in BDNF, Hippocampus, tagged on July 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia Having blogged here several times on various and sundry roles of BDNF in cognitive function, it was pretty cool to see the recent paper, “Neural stem cells improve cognition via BDNF in a transgenic model of Alzheimer disease” [doi: 10.1073/pnas.0901402106].  It seems that in a transgenic mouse model for Alzheimer’s Disease that [...]

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BOLD new inquiry on genetic basis of mental disability

Posted in ARHGAP18, Actin, CDC34, DLPFC, GTPase, RSRC1, TGF-alpha, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia One of the mental functions many of us take for granted is memory – that is – until we’re at the grocery store.  If you’re like me, you dart out of the house confident that you don’t need a list since you’re just going to “pick up a few things” – only [...]

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Epigenetic keys to brain repair

Posted in HDACs, Myelin, tagged , on July 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia Siming Shen et al., in their paper, “Age-dependent epigenetic control of differentiation inhibitors is critical for remyelination efficiency“ provide insight on basic mechanisms of myelination. While myelination (think of it as the plastic insulation on copper electrical wires) makes normally developing neural networks much more efficient, it has a way of inhibiting [...]

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‘How to’ guide for adult brain repair is written in genetic code

Posted in Olfactory bulb, tagged , on December 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment »

Image by koolkao via Flickr Damage to the human brain, ie. loss of cells due to programmed or non-programmed cell death is presently considered to be an irreversible fate. Many a skilled neurosurgeon can place new neurons or stem cells into damaged areas, but that does little good unless those cells are able to sprout [...]

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Epigenetic perk keeps neurons bright-eyed and bushy tailed

Posted in BAF53b, SWI/SNF, tagged , , on December 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia There is rightly much ado over the recent stem cell breakthrough. Indeed, who wouldn’t want to have an eternal supply of sprightly new cells to swap in to replace run-down geezer cells. Swapping in a neuron, however, is not quite so simple, as these cells are highly differentiated with far reaching projections [...]

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