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Keyword: microglia

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  • Alzheimer's breakthrough: Discovered the disease's 'ground zero' - paving the way to a cure

    12/20/2017 2:41:30 PM PST · by x1stcav · 39 replies
    Daily Mail ^ | 12/20/17 | Staff
    Alzheimer's disease is caused by immune cells in the brain triggered by inflammation, according to a breakthrough discovery. The new research could lead to the development of a drug that treats or even prevents the condition within five years, say scientists. Experiments found destroying specific cells - known as microglia - reduced the formation of clumps of amyloid beta that form in Alzheimer's and destroy memory. These are the rogue proteins believed to lie at the root of the devastating neurological illness. Human trials of all therapies have failed in the past. Most have targeted the amyloid plaques that build...
  • Has Stanford University found a cure for Alzheimer's disease?

    01/06/2015 4:49:09 PM PST · by SeekAndFind · 101 replies
    The Telegraph ^ | 12/08/2014 | By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor
    Alzheimer's could be prevented and even cured by boosting the brain's own immune response, scientists at Stanford University believe. Researchers discovered that nerve cells die because cells which are supposed to clear the brain of bacteria, viruses and dangerous deposits, stop working. These cells, called 'microglia' function well when people are young, but when they age, a single protein called EP2 stops them operating efficiently. Now scientists have shown that blocking the protein allows the microglia to function normally again so they can hoover up the dangerous sticky amyloid-beta plaques which damage nerve cells in Alzheimer's disease. The researchers found...
  • Neuroscience: Map the other brain

    09/09/2013 4:10:37 PM PDT · by neverdem · 5 replies
    Nature News ^ | 04 September 2013 | R. Douglas Fields
    Glia, the non-neuronal cells that make up most of the brain, must not be left out of an ambitious US mapping initiative, says R. Douglas Fields. The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative announced by US President Barack Obama in April seeks to map and monitor the function of neural connections in the entire brains of experimental animals, and eventually in the human cerebral cortex. Several researchers have raised doubts about the project, cautioning that mapping the brain is a much more complex endeavour than mapping the human genome, and its usefulness more uncertain. I believe that exploring...
  • Immune cells chow down on living brain

    03/06/2013 5:27:33 PM PST · by neverdem · 14 replies
    Science News ^ | March 5, 2013 | Meghan Rosen
    Microglia eat neural stem cells in developing rat and monkey brains Zombies aren’t the only things that feast on brains. Immune cells called microglia gorge on neural stem cells in developing rat and monkey brains, researchers report in the Mar. 6 Journal of Neuroscience. Chewing up neuron-spawning stem cells could help control brain size by pruning away excess growth. Scientists have previously linked abnormal human brain size to autism and schizophrenia. “It shows microglia are very important in the developing brain,” says neuroscientist Joseph Mathew Antony of the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the research. Scientists have...
  • OCD? Your Immune System Could Be to Blame

    05/28/2010 8:31:24 PM PDT · by neverdem · 12 replies · 589+ views
    ScienceNOW ^ | May 27, 2010 | Mitch Leslie
    Enlarge Image Too clean. Both mice lack the gene Hoxb8, but the animal on the right has received bone marrow from a healthy mouse, curbing its tendency to groom compulsively. Credit: Shau-Kwaun Chen/University of Utah School of Medicine Some people just can't help themselves. They wash their hands over and over, scrubbing their skin raw. Or they lock and relock doors, pull out their own hair, or obsessively rearrange the contents of their closet. Now, a study of mice suggests that faulty immune cells prompt such compulsive behaviors. The results raise the possibility of treating obsessive-compulsive disorder by targeting...
  • Marrow stem cells defeat Alzheimers

    02/18/2006 3:32:17 PM PST · by Coleus · 43 replies · 1,168+ views
    UPI ^ | 02.17.06
    MONTREAL, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Canadian researchers said Friday they have uncovered a natural defense mechanism to Alzheimer's disease. Not surprisingly, it involves stem cells -- those derived from bone marrow. In Alzheimer's patients, plaque forms in the brain, but the brain's resident immune cells, called microglia, can't fight off the substance. The plaque can then kill off the brain's neurons, or nerve cells. However, microglia harvested from bone marrow stem cells do appear capable of defeating the plague, said researchers from the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval and the research centre at Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec, Canada....