Experiments on mice may help scientists understand the workings of the prion protein linked to brain disease vCJD. Swiss researchers say there is evidence that prions play a vital role in the maintenance of the sheath surrounding our nerves. They say it is possible that an absence of prions causes diseases of the peripheral nervous system. One expert said there was growing evidence that the prion had a number of important roles in the body. As well as the latest research in the journal Nature Neuroscience, other studies have indicated prions may protect us from Alzheimer's disease or even play a role in our sense of smell. The prion protein only came to the attention of scientists in recent years as they searched for the cause of vCJD - the human variant of BSE, or Mad Cow Disease. This degenerative and incurable brain condition is now thought to be caused by a "mis-folded" version of the prion. However, there is still little understanding of what the protein is supposed to do in its normal, healthy, form. The study, by scientists at the University Hospital in Zurich, looked at mice bred with fewer prion proteins. While these mice are known to be resistant to prion diseases equivalent to vCJD in humans, they showed a number of abnormalities, including a degeneration, later in life, of the peripheral nerve cells, and the protective myelin sheath which surrounds them. Peripheral nerves are those which link the limbs and organs to the central nervous system - the spinal cord and brain. Looking more closely, researchers examined the effects of removing the prion protein in both the nerve cells themselves, and the Schwann cells surrounding them, which are responsible for making the myelin sheath. (C)BBC

Keyword: Prions; Glia
Link ID: 13706 - Posted: 01.25.2010

By Tina Hesman Saey In the beginning, the brain was a dark and shapeless void. Then scientists deployed dyes, and lo, the intricate branching of brain cells called neurons was revealed. It was good but didn’t show which cells rubbed branches with others. After a time, scientists brought forth electrodes and functional MRI machines to eavesdrop on neurons’ electrical chatter. It was good, but the message was hearsay. It could not show that any specific chitchat caused a particular behavior. Then the scientists said let there be light, and a new age of neuroscience dawned. Now researchers create light-responsive molecules — or borrow them from microorganisms — to insert into animals’ neurons. And light shines upon the molecules, giving scientists dominion over the brain cells’ activity. Harnessing light’s power has given birth to a burgeoning new field called opto­genetics, which allows scientists to control neurons in freely moving animals. Although the technology is new, it is already beginning to illuminate some of the darkest corners of the brain, such as the connections that guide movement or make memories and the neuronal circuits that go haywire in depression, addiction or schizophrenia. What scientists learn from the light-aided experiments may lead to refinements of existing therapies or to new treatments for nervous system disorders. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13705 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Tia Ghose Removing a chunk of the skull can make way for stronger, clearer signals from a common method of monitoring brainwaves. The skull-free electroencephalography could make neural prostheses like bionic arms or eyes less invasive. “It’s notoriously hard to have a long-term electrode implanted in the brain,” said University of California at Berkeley neuroscientist Bradley Voytek, lead author of the study to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. So if you can get around that by just having a small hole drilled into the skull, that would be very helpful.” Doctors sometimes treat patients who have suffered severe head trauma, such as gunshot or knife wounds, with what is known as a hemicraniectomy. A surgeon cuts out a chunk of skull that’s the diameter of an orange or grapefruit, to give the brain room to swell. Surgeons usually reattach the piece of bone four to six months later, once the swelling has subsided and the skin has healed. In the meantime, the patient’s scalp and a helmet protect the exposed area. And doctors stitch the skull fragment into the abdomen, “bathed in the body’s own fluids,” to prevent it from deteriorating, Voytek said. Voytek’s team took advantage of this brief window of time to compare EEG signals from people with and without the skull as a barrier. Patients performed simple tasks like squeezing a person’s hand or listening to an “oddball stimulus” of three low-pitched sounds followed by a higher one, he said. Wired.com © 2009 Condé Nast Digital.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 13704 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Brian Alexander The 69-year-old man saw the spider clearly, whacked at it, yet the spider wouldn’t die. At night, people he knew started visiting his bedroom, sitting in the armchair beside his night table. But he hadn’t invited them. Oh, and there were animals roaming around his house. A different patient saw a double decker bus in the living room. Another saw fire hydrants just like the one that used to sit in front of her childhood home. Then there was the woman who saw small children sitting atop her piano. She didn’t know them and had no kids of her own, but there they were. These people, whose cases were documented in medical journals, are not crazy. They are affected by a condition called “Charles Bonnet syndrome,” (pronounced bow-NAY), a somewhat common hallucinatory condition among people suffering various forms vision loss. The condition was named for an 18th-century naturalist who described it in his grandfather. Recently, Ed Connors, a 61-year-old software engineer near Boston saw a woman walking her dog on his street. In reality, it was just a shadow. Sometimes when in a shopping mall, Connors thinks he sees people and will move to get out of their way. Except nobody is there. © 2010 Microsoft

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 13703 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Carina Storrs An event such as sexual assault or a battlefield injury is physically agonizing at the time, but it also can eventually sentence a person to a host of mental symptoms—often vivid flashbacks, anxiety and emotional detachment—known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The disorder afflicts 3.4 percent of men and 9.7 percent of women in the U.S., according to research estimates. Diagnosing PTSD is not necessarily simple. Psychological evaluations for PTSD cannot always easily distinguish it from other mental illnesses, such as depression, or determine if a patient is over- or underreporting the symptoms. Now, a brain- scanning technique called magnetoencephelography (or MEG) could offer the first biological test to help specifically diagnose and treat those with PTSD. In a study published January 20 in Journal of Neural Engineering, MEG correctly identified 97 percent of patients that psychologists previously determined were suffering from PTSD. MEG, which was developed in the 1960s for military purposes, offers a unique insight into the neural communications within the brain, says Apostolos Georgopoulos, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota Medical School and lead author of the study. The instrument measures the magnetic field created as electrical current passes between areas of the brain. In MEG studies about two years ago, Georgopoulos found that, whereas healthy people shared similar patterns of neural communication, people with Alzheimer's and schizophrenia had distinct, disease-specific patterns. © 2010 Scientific American

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 13702 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Helen Thomson I'M lying on a bed in a cosy room. Soothing music plays in the background. Four palm-sized paddles rest silent and cool across my midriff. In the time it takes to do a typical gym workout, I could be up to 7 inches thinner than I was before I lay down. No, I'm not in the middle of a daydream, I'm in a private clinic in London, and I'm about to have my fat zapped. Half an hour ago, I walked into a plush reception lobby on Harley Street - a thoroughfare famed for its exclusive private medical practices. Business is good. Two beauty therapists sit in the reception area chatting to a customer. "You lost just 3 inches this time? Never mind, we'll see if we can get a few more next week. How does Tuesday suit?" I am visiting Harley Fit, one of a string of new companies that promise to transform your waistline in your lunch break. My visit is the culmination of a journey that began when a press release landed on my desk boasting a treatment that could make me "7 inches thinner in 20 minutes". It sounded too good to be true. Yet thousands of people have attended one of the hundreds of clinics around the world that offer the treatment, and scores of reviews in lifestyle magazines speak of results that are "nothing short of amazing". At around £250 per treatment it doesn't come cheap, but with the diet industry estimated to turn over tens of billions of dollars every year in the US alone, the appetite for a quick fix is clearly there. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 13701 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Tina Hesman Saey A little bit of stress might be just what the doctor ordered to combat obesity and diabetes. A new study in mice finds that a protein that plays a role in responding to certain kinds of stress may help regulate a metabolic pathway important for controlling blood sugar, burning fat and even making tumors grow. The study shows that the protein, known to play a role in aging (SN: 1/31/09, p. 13), is part of a protein family that has its finger on the pulse of both major pathways cells use to make energy, says Leonard Guarente, a molecular biologist at MIT who was not involved in the research. The study indicates that the protein, known as sirtuin 6, or SIRT6, is what’s known as a master regulator, in this case helping cells switch between oxidative metabolism, the major form of energy production in cells; and anaerobic glycolysis, a less efficient way of making energy and can be tapped when oxygen or nutrients are in short supply. The anaerobic form of glycolysis needs more glucose to generate the same amount of energy as oxidative processes. The study, which appears in the Jan. 22 Cell, could lead the way to new therapies for diabetes and obesity. Sirtuins are a family of proteins found in many organisms from yeast to humans. The most famous of the seven sirtuin proteins in humans, SIRT1, has been studied as a possible antiaging compound. That protein also helps regulate oxidative metabolism. Until recently, not much was known about the roles of other sirtuins. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 13700 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas When human measures for intelligence are applied to other species, dolphins come in just behind humans in brainpower, according to new research. Dolphins demonstrate skills and awareness previously thought to be present only in humans. New MRI scans show that dolphin brains are four to five times larger for their body size when compared to another animal of similar size, according to Lori Marino, a senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University, and one of the world's leading dolphin experts. Humans also possess an impressive brain-to-body ratio. "If we use relative brain size as a metric of 'intelligence' then one would have to conclude that dolphins are second in intelligence to modern humans," said Marino, who performed several MRI scans on dolphin brains. Marino will be presenting her findings at next month's American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting. "Size isn't everything," she admitted, but she says at least two other lines of evidence support her claims about dolphin intelligence. First, various features of the dolphin neocortex -- the part of the brain involved in higher-order thinking and processing of emotional information -- are "particularly expanded" in dolphins. Second, behavioral studies conducted by Marino and other experts demonstrate that dolphins exhibit human-like skills. These include mirror self-recognition, cultural learning, comprehension of symbol-based communication systems, and an understanding of abstract concepts. © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC

Keyword: Evolution; Intelligence
Link ID: 13699 - Posted: 06.24.2010

African naked mole rats live underground and never come out. They are tiny, toothy and blind. They look like little pink sausages, and they smell terrible. Yet, they are giving scientists valuable insights into evolution, social structure and adaptation. Recently, for example, two University of Illinois researchers discovered that the brains of naked mole rats can withstand long periods of oxygen deprivation--a condition known as hypoxia--for periods far greater than any other mammal. While the researchers are focused on trying to understand evolution--in this case, how species adapt to challenges posed by their environment--the discovery ultimately could lead to new approaches for treating brain injuries caused by heart attack, stroke or trauma that starves the brain of needed oxygen. These creatures, the only mammals that are coldblooded, are small rodents that live in big colonies of 300 members about six feet underground. Their quarters, narrow tunnels, are extremely close, and their air supply is limited. The air they breathe is so toxic that it would kill or lead to irreversible brain damage in any other mammal, the scientists said. “These animals are challenged by low oxygen and high carbon dioxide, and they can survive under these conditions,” said Thomas Park, professor of biological sciences who, along with John Larson, associate professor of physiology in psychiatry, reported the findings. “Our next step will be to find out why and how they are able to do this.” © 2010 U.S.News & World Report LP

Keyword: Evolution; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13698 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ATLANTA - Tests of the first two oral drugs developed for treating multiple sclerosis show that both cut the frequency of relapses and may slow progression of the disease, but with side effects that could pose a tough decision for patients. Two experts not involved in the studies said the drugs appear effective but with potentially dangerous side effects. It’s too soon to know if the pills will be approved by the government or widely adopted by physicians, they said. About 2.5 million people around the world have multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease that can cause muscle tremors, paralysis and problems with speech, memory and concentration. The studies involve the most common form of the disease, in which people are well for a while and then suffer periodic relapses. Current treatments can reduce the duration and severity of symptoms but require daily or regular shots or infusions. The new studies tested two types of pills. Cladribine, made by Merck Serono, is already sold to treat a rare blood cancer. For MS, it would be taken eight to 10 days a year. Fingolimod is a daily MS pill being developed by Novartis. The research found that patients on the pills were about half as likely to suffer relapses of symptoms as those who took dummy pills or a commonly prescribed shot for MS. © 2010 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 13697 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sandra G. Boodman Rebecca Yates was sick of sounding like a broken record -- and tired of getting the same response from the internist at her HMO. For more than a year, the retired licensed practical nurse said, she had been complaining about a constant drippy nose. Each time she was told that her problem was allergic rhinitis: a runny nose caused by allergies. But none of the decongestants, antihistamines or other drugs she was prescribed helped. The drip had gotten so bad that Yates had to insert twisted cotton up her nose to absorb it while she cooked. ..... "The doctor said, 'Mrs. Yates, are you home by yourself?' " she recalled. When she told Greene her husband was with her, the allergist told her that the fluid came back "100 percent positive for a CSF [cerebrospinal fluid] leak, and you're going to have to have brain surgery." Yates immediately burst into tears. A CSF leak is usually caused by a blow to the head -- actor George Clooney suffered one while filming a torture scene in the 2005 movie "Syriana" -- but sometimes develops for no apparent reason. It occurs when the fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord leaks through a hole in the dura, the membrane that surrounds them, typically causing a splitting headache or the discharge of clear fluid through the nose. Many cases resolve in a few days with rest and without treatment; sometimes surgery is required. The chief risk of an untreated CSF leak is bacterial meningitis, which can result in brain damage. © 2010 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 13696 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Linda Geddes IF HYPNOSIS leaves you unmoved, blame the wiring in your brain. It seems those who find it easier to fall into a trance are more likely to have an imbalance in the efficiency of their brain's two hemispheres. The finding backs hotly disputed claims of a biological basis for hypnosis. Around 15 per cent of people are thought to be extremely susceptibleMovie Camera to hypnosis, while another 10 per cent are almost impossible to hypnotise. The rest of us fall somewhere in between. Sceptics argue that rather than being in a genuine trance, some of us are simply more suggestible and therefore more likely to act the part. However, recent studies have hinted that during hypnosis, there is less connectivity between different regions, and less activity in the rational, left side of the brain, and more in the artistic right side. Such findings suggest hypnosis is more than acting. To see if there are also differences between the brains of susceptible and unresponsive volunteers when they were awake, Peter Naish of the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, used a standard test of hypnotic susceptibility, that combines motor and cognitive tasks, to identify 10 volunteers of each type. He then gave each volunteer a pair of spectacles with an LED mounted on the left and right side of the frame. The two LEDs flashed in quick succession, and the volunteers had to say which flashed first. Naish repeated the task until the gap between the flashes was so short that the volunteers could no longer judge the correct order. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Laterality
Link ID: 13695 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Bruce Bower In a new study, Greek children watched a blue snail and red snail race on a computer screen and judged which animal traveled a longer distance or a longer time. Results suggest that, by age 4, spatial knowledge plays a critical role in time perception, but not vice versa.D. Casasanto Although 4-year-olds’ concept of time often seems to consist solely of what they want right now, the passage of time still moves them. By that age, kids already mark time by referring to physical distances, say psychologist Daniel Casasanto of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and his colleagues. Abstract concepts such as how time works stem from youngsters’ real-world perceptions and behaviors, not from cultural rules or metaphorical language used in speech, Casasanto’s group proposes in an upcoming Cognitive Science. “We find that time representations depend on space just as strongly in 4-year-olds as in 10-year-olds, even though 4-year-olds have very little experience using space-time metaphors in language,” Casasanto says. By age 10, children have heard and spoken many spatial metaphors for time, such as “a long test” and “moving up an appointment.” © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13694 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Craig H. Kinsley and R. Adam Franssen What turns a young female concerned mainly about herself into a good mother who will make sure her offspring survive in an otherwise hostile world? The bodily changes of childbearing are obvious, but as we are discovering, the changes in the brain are no less dramatic. The maternal brain is a formidable object, a singular entity forged by hormones, neurochemicals, and exposure to the ravening demands and irresistible cuteness of offspring. During pregnancy, the female brain is effectively revving up for the difficult tasks that await. A mother-to-be may most notice her cravings for ice cream and pickles, but inside her head, a transformation is afoot in fundamental functions ranging from attention to memory. As an intriguing new paper demonstrates, even her sensitivity to others' emotions increases. Before we describe the new paper, let us contemplate the maternal brain in all of its wet majesty. Among its remarkable changes are those that allow the mother to focus on her infant in the persistent attempt to puzzle out the child’s needs and wants. As any parent knows, the infant is inscrutable – indeed, the child remains so for much of the parent’s life – and intuition is the mother’s best friend. The parent tests hypotheses: Is the baby hungry? Tired? A sensitized brain facilitates these “experiments.” In humans, rodents and other animals, we find data showing that the mother’s interest in, and motivation toward young increases dramatically as pregnancy nears term, and still further immediately following birth. © 2010 Scientific American

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Emotions
Link ID: 13693 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sujata Gupta Always stunk at video games? Perhaps you've been cursed with a small striatum, a region of the brain involved in learning and memory. Researchers have found that college students with relatively large striatums learned how to play a challenging video game faster than their small-striatum peers. Large-striatum individuals were also better at shifting priorities from, say, shooting a target to outrunning an enemy--abilities that could translate to the real world. The game isn't exactly Halo or Assassin's Creed. Instead, Space Fortress looks a lot like the very first arcade games, with geometric shapes subbing for spaceships and buildings. "The graphics stink," admits Arthur Kramer, a psychologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who designed the game in the early 1980s. Gameplay is fairly complex, however: Players must shoot down a fortress with their ship while avoiding enemies, the bad guys look a lot like the good guys, and the ship has no brakes. Over the years, researchers have used the game to study memory, motor control, and learning speed. The U.S. Air Force and the Israeli air force have even changed their training regimens based on how cadets fared as players. Recent studies have suggested that players appear to heavily utilize their striatum during gameplay. So Kramer and Kirk Erickson, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, decided to investigate whether the size of the striatum alone might be responsible for these abilities. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13692 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GARDINER HARRIS Despite the Obama administration’s tacit support of more liberal state medical marijuana laws, the federal government still discourages research into the medicinal uses of smoked marijuana. That may be one reason that — even though some patients swear by it — there is no good scientific evidence that legalizing marijuana’s use provides any benefits over current therapies. Lyle E. Craker, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Massachusetts, has been trying to get permission from federal authorities for nearly nine years to grow a supply of the plant that he could study and provide to researchers for clinical trials. But the Drug Enforcement Administration — more concerned about abuse than potential benefits — has refused, even after the agency’s own administrative law judge ruled in 2007 that Dr. Craker’s application should be approved, and even after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in March ended the Bush administration’s policy of raiding dispensers of medical marijuana that comply with state laws. “All I want to be able to do is grow it so that it can be tested,” Dr. Craker said in comments echoed by other researchers. Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 13691 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ABBY ELLIN The year was 1988, and I was a college student on my junior year abroad, traveling aimlessly through the Middle East and Europe. My backpack was crammed with shorts and T-shirts, bathing suits and sarongs, my Walkman and Grateful Dead tapes. And oh, yes, a scale, buried deep beneath layers of socks. Having been a chubby adolescent — and having spent six summers at fat camp — I was terrified of gaining weight. Unfortunately, nothing gave me as much pleasure as eating, which I did with abandon. To maintain some semblance of control, I divided my eating into Food Days and Nonfood Days: that is, days when I consumed vast amounts, and days when I policed my caloric intake with military precision. The routine kept my weight in check, more or less. Never mind that it was insane. No one at my college health center knew what to do with me. Clearly, I wasn’t anorexic; I was slightly round, in fact. I didn’t purge, so bulimia was out. To my distress, the counselors told me there was nothing they could do for me and sent me on my way. Today, I would probably qualify for a diagnosis of “eating disorder not otherwise specified,” usually known by its acronym, Ednos. In the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it encompasses virtually every type of eating problem that is not anorexia or bulimia. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 13690 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JONATHAN DIENST My son Jared lay in a bed at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital, limp and pale, his 7-year-old body tethered to a tangle of tubes and monitor wires. A neurologist, Dr. Maurine Packard, stood to his left. “Jared,” I recall her saying. “Pay attention to what I say.” And then, in a strong, firm voice: “The barn is red.” She waited a few moments and asked, “What color is the barn?” Jared started to answer, then froze. My wife and I, sitting behind Dr. Packard, froze too. Two days before, he had been a happy, athletic second grader, a beautiful boy who loved playing baseball and basketball in the park. Now he couldn’t walk; he had to struggle to remember the color of a barn. He tried again, and then replied in a weak, slurred voice. “No,” Jared said. Dr. Packard nodded, as if that was the answer she had expected. Before June 23, 2008, my wife, Victoria, and I had never heard of a child’s having a stroke. Most people, many doctors included, still haven’t. In the agonizing months that followed, we heard it over and over: “But children don’t have strokes.” How little we knew. It turns out that stroke, by some estimates, is the sixth leading cause of death in infants and children. And experts say doctors and hospitals need to be far more aggressive in detecting and treating it. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stroke; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13689 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By MARK DERR Scientists have linked a gene to compulsive behavior — in dogs. Researchers studied Doberman pinschers that curled up into balls, sucking their flanks for hours at a time, and found that the afflicted dogs shared a gene. They describe their findings — the first such gene identified in dogs — in a short report this month in Molecular Psychiatry. Dr. Nicholas Dodman, director of the animal behavior clinic at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, in North Grafton, Mass., and the lead author of the report, said the findings had broad implications for compulsive disorders in people and animals. Estimates have obsessive-compulsive disorder afflicting anywhere from 2.5 percent to 8 percent of the human population. It shows up in behavior like excessive hand washing, repetitive checking of stoves, locks and lights, and damaging actions like pulling one’s hair out by the roots and self-mutilation. The disorder has been used in popular movies and television shows to define characters like the reclusive writer Melvin Udall, played by Jack Nicholson, in “As Good as It Gets” and Adrian Monk, played by Tony Shaloub, in the television series “Monk.” Similar disorders are known in dogs, particularly in certain breeds, including Dobermans. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 13688 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Allison Bond Inflammation in the body has gotten a bad rap recently, thanks to the exacerbating role it may play in health problems such as heart disease and cancer. Now there may be one more malady to add to the list: Alzheimer’s disease. When inflammation arises in the body as a result of infection or injury, the immune response also appears to accelerate memory loss in people with Alzheimer’s, according to a recent study published in the journal Neurology. In this study of changes in patients’ cognitive abilities over a span of six months, Alzheimer’s patients who had chronic (ongoing) inflammation as a result of, for instance, obesity or arthritis experienced four times the amount of memory loss as compared with patients without such inflammation. And those with chronic inflammation who also experienced an acute immune response (short-term, such as from an infection) were even worse off: their memory loss accelerated 10 times faster than patients without any inflammation. “When we started the study, we thought short-lived events would be impor­tant,” says lead author Clive Holmes, a professor of biological psychiatry at the University of Southampton in England. “We hadn’t realized how important chronic inflammation was going to be.” So how does inflammation, whether from an infection or from chronic dis­ease, damage the brain? The answer lies in the body’s immune response, which launches an attack on invading pathogens, releasing inflaming proteins such as tumor necrosis factor, or TNF. This molecule causes the vagus nerve, which extends from the brain to the abdomen and controls vital functions such as heartbeat, to send an electrical im­pulse to the brain, thereby directing the brain to secrete its own immune messengers. © 2010 Scientific American,

Keyword: Alzheimers; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 13687 - Posted: 06.24.2010