News • Research on dopaminergic neurons
Immunotherapy to prevent neuron loss in Parkinson’s disease
Promising new research points to a new immunotherapy approach that could help preserve viable neurons in people with Parkinson’s disease.
Search for: "microglia" - 32 articles found
News • Dynamic supramolecular peptide therapy
Injection could protect the brain after a stroke
Scientists from Northwestern University have developed an injectable regenerative nanomaterial that helps protect the brain during the vulnerable window after a stroke.
News • New insights on CLEC5A
Immune gene discovery could prevent memory loss in Alzheimer's patients
A gene once believed to fight only viral infections could also hold the key to preventing memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients, a new study finds. This paves the way for new drug developments.
News • New therapy approach for brain tumors
Attacking glioblastoma from multiple angles
A new approach to fight glioblastoma: Swiss researchers have now developed an immunotherapy that not only attacks the brain tumor—it also turns its microenvironment against it.
News • Glioblastoma research
Brain scars from cancer treatment key factor for relapse
Researchers have identified fibrotic scarring as a key source of resurgence of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The new insights could lead to better prevention of this type of brain cancer.
News • Missed in MRI
Multiple sclerosis: PET scans reveal 'hidden' inflammation
In some patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), symptoms worsen during treatment, but MRI scans do not indicate any change. In such cases, positron emission tomography could help, a new study suggests.
News • LDIR in neurology
The therapeutic potential of low-dose radiation for TBI and stroke
Neuroscientists recently discovered that low-dose ionizing radiation (LDIR) can reduce lesion size and reverse motor deficits in TBI and ischemic stroke mice, demonstrating its therapeutic potential.
Article • Flow cytometry
Detecting and measuring nanoplastics in the blood stream
Plastics are a part of everyday life, and an increasingly concerning factor of global environmental pollution. They also have infiltrated our bodies as microparticles (MPs) and nanoparticles (NPs), found even in placentas supporting foetal life. And they are in our blood. Now, researchers in Spain have developed a new method to detect and measure nanoparticles in human peripheral blood that is…
Article • Tissue-engineered glioblastoma model
3D brain tumour in a dish to personalize cancer treatment
It is the size of a common pencil eraser, but it could have a huge impact on the therapy of glioblastoma: Scientists in Virginia have developed a novel 3D tissue-engineered model of the brain tumour microenvironment, which can be used to assess how the glioma cell invades healthy tissue, proliferates, and reacts to chemotherapy drugs.
News • In vivo
Magnetic resonance imaging shows brain inflammation
Researchers visualize brain inflammation using diffusion-weighted MRI. This detailed "X-ray" of inflammation cannot be obtained with conventional MRI, but requires data acquisition sequences and special mathematical models.
News • Bone marrow transplant
The impact of chemotherapy on the brain
Pre-transplant chemotherapy facilitates the replacement of the brain's innate immune cells, by other immune cells derived from the transplanted stem cells.
News • MS biomarker
Blood marker gives new insights into multiple sclerosis
Nerve damage in multiple sclerosis can be detected via the concentration of neurofilament light chain in the blood. This could offer valuable information on future disease course and therapy effectiveness.
News • Underrated lipids
The importance of 'beige' fat in dementia protection
Beige is considered a calming paint color, and scientists have new evidence that beige fat has a similar impact on the brain, bringing down the inflammation associated with the more common white fat and providing protection from dementia. They have found that beige fat cells, which are typically intermingled with white fat cells in the subcutaneous fat present on “pear shaped” people, mediate…
News • From foe to friend?
Some Alzheimer’s plaques may be protective, not destructive
One of the characteristic hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the buildup of amyloid-beta plaques in the brain. Most therapies designed to treat AD target these plaques, but they’ve largely failed in clinical trials. New research by scientists at the Salk Institute upends conventional views of the origin of one prevalent type of plaque, indicating a reason why treatments have been…
News • Brain tumour analysis
Glioblastoma '3D maps' help find new therapies
Researchers at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona obtained a highly accurate recreation of human glioblastoma’s features using a novel 3D microscopy analysis. The study, published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications, provides new information to help with the diagnose, by finding therapeutical targets and designing immunotherapeutical strategies.
News • Microbiome research
'Organs-on-a-chip' system sheds light on interactions between gut and brain
In many ways, our brain and our digestive tract are deeply connected. Feeling nervous may lead to physical pain in the stomach, while hunger signals from the gut make us feel irritable. Recent studies have even suggested that the bacteria living in our gut can influence some neurological diseases. Modeling these complex interactions in animals such as mice is difficult to do, because their…
News • Promising drug combination
Stroke: new prescription strategy shows great potential
Research conducted at the Health New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence at the Louisiana State University (LSU) reports that a combination of an LSU Health-patented drug and selected DHA derivatives is more effective in protecting brain cells and increasing recovery after stroke than a single drug. The findings are published in Brain Circulation.
News • Neuroscience
An unexpected role for the brain's immune cells
Researchers have discovered that microglia cells constantly survey the brain to prevent spontaneous seizures.
News • Medulloblastoma
Brain cancer mechanism might give insights into many tumour types
A surprising discovery about a rare form of childhood brain cancer suggests a new treatment approach for that cancer – and potentially many others. Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined that the supposedly simple cancer, called medulloblastoma, forms an unexpectedly intricate network to drive its growth. Some tumor cells actually turn into another type of…
News • Neurology
Overcoming the blood-brain-barrier: Delivering therapeutics to brain
For the first time, scientists have found a way that can effectively transport medication into the brain - which could lead to improved treatments for neurological and neurodegenerative diseases. In a study, scientists from Newcastle University have led an international team in a major breakthrough in unlocking the secrets of how medications can infiltrate the brain.
News • Neurodegeneration
Study sheds new light on microglia
Inside the body, disease and injury can leave behind quite the mess — a scattering of cellular debris, like bits of broken glass, rubber and steel left behind in a car accident. Inside the central nervous system (CNS), a region that includes the brain and spinal cord, it is the job of certain cells, called microglia, to clean up that cellular debris. Microglia have counterparts called…
News • Choline
Essential nutrient holds promise against Alzheimer’s
In a new study, researchers at the Biodesign Institute explore a safe and simple treatment for one of the most devastating and perplexing afflictions: Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Lead authors Ramon Velazquez and Salvatore Oddo, along with their colleagues in the Arizona State University (ASU)-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center (NDRC), investigate the effects of choline, an important…
News • Neurology
New potential biotherapy against Alzheimer's disease
Researchers at the University of Florida have discovered that a modified version of an important immune cell protein could be used to treat Alzheimer's disease. The study reveals that soluble versions of a protein called TLR5 can reduce the buildup of amyloid plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's disease model mice and prevent the toxic peptide that forms these plaques from killing neurons.
News • Immunological memory
Our brains 'remember' inflammation and diseases
Inflammatory reactions can change the brain’s immune cells in the long term – meaning that these cells have an ‘immunological memory’. This memory may influence the progression of neurological disorders that occur later in life, and is therefore a previously unknown factor that could influence the severity of these diseases. Scientists at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases…
News • Triggering inflammatory reactions
Parkinson’s gene initiates disease outside of the brain
Until very recently, Parkinson’s had been thought a disease that starts in the brain, destroying motion centers and resulting in tremors and loss of movement. New research published this week, shows the most common Parkinson’s gene mutation may change how immune cells react to generic infections like colds, which in turn trigger the inflammatory reaction in the brain that causes…
News • Award
DZNE researcher receives world’s top Brain Prize
Together with three other neuroscientists Professor Christian Haass, speaker of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Munich site and Professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, receives the world’s most valuable prize for brain research. The 2018 Brain Prize, awarded by the Lundbeck Foundation in Denmark, is worth one million Euros. Awarded annually, it…
News • Brain disease
Risks – and benefits – of the Alzheimer’s gene
Scientists drilling down to the molecular roots of Alzheimer’s disease have encountered a good news/bad news scenario. A major player is a gene called TREM2, mutations of which can substantially raise a person’s risk of the disease. The bad news is that in the early stages of the disease, high-risk TREM2 variants can hobble the immune system’s ability to protect the brain from amyloid beta,…
News • Antioxidant study
How strawberries may prevent Alzheimer's
A natural compound in strawberries could help treat age-related mental decline and conditions like Alzheimer’s, a new study found.
Article • Light microscopy
An image is worth a thousand words
Light microscopy today offers a wealth of techniques that provide fascinating insights into life on subcellular level. “In light microscopy these days there are so many new techniques that each of us can only handle a subset of them,” says Christian Tischer, scientific officer in der Advanced Light Microscopy Facility of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany,…
News • Brain Injury and Disease
Researchers Identify How Inflammation Spreads Through the Brain After Injury
Researchers have identified a new mechanism by which inflammation can spread throughout the brain after injury. This mechanism may explain the widespread and long-lasting inflammation that occurs after traumatic brain injury, and may play a role in other neurodegenerative diseases.
News • Study
Molecular Roots of Alzheimer’s
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have detailed the structure of a molecule that has been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. Knowing the shape of the molecule — and how that shape may be disrupted by certain genetic mutations — can help in understanding how Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases develop and how to prevent and treat them.
New biomarkers allow for better diagnosis in multiple sclerosis
Biomarkers – mainly defined as surrogates serving as indicators for specific biological states – play an ever-increasing role in neuroscience and especially in the management of multiple sclerosis, scientists reported today at the 21st Meeting of the European Neurological Society (ENS) in Lisbon. In analyzing gene expression patterns, immunological changes and imaging abnormalities,…
