No-one knows what connects awareness — the state of consciousness — with its contents, i.e. thoughts and experiences. Now researchers propose an elegant solution: a literal, structural connection via 'L5p neurons'. The group offers evidence – and caveats. Their challenge to experimentalists: if consciousness requires L5p neurons, all brain activity without them must be unconscious.
Read moreResearchers have developed a superior method to describe the very earliest effects that Alzheimer's Disease proteins have on the properties of brain cells.
Read moreInvestigators have pinpointed a molecular defect that seems almost universal among patients with Parkinson's disease and those at a high risk of acquiring it.
Read moreThere is growing evidence that Parkinson's disease (PD) affects women and men differently. In this insightful review, scientists present the most recent knowledge about these sex-related differences and highlight the significance of estrogens, which play an important role in the sex differences in PD.
Read moreResearchers have found changes in molecules in the blood that might be new markers of type 1 diabetes. New findings may help understand the early pathogenesis of the disease.
Read moreScientists appear to have solved a decades-long mystery regarding the precise biochemical pathway leading to a fatal genetic disorder in children that results in seizures, developmental regression and death, usually around age 3. Studying a mouse model with the same human illness — called Krabbe disease — the researchers also identified a possible therapeutic strategy.
Read moreBicuspid aortic valve (BAV), the most common heart valve birth defect, is associated with genetic variation in human primary cilia during heart valve development, report researchers. Crucial to cilia development is the exocyst, which shuttles cilia cargo to the cell membrane. Disrupting the exocyst impaired ciliogenesis and caused a spectrum of cardiac defects in zebrafish and BAV in mice.
Read moreScientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona shed light on how the genome organizes groups of genes linked to specific processes, like the release of toxins.
Read moreA drug used to treat enlarged prostate may also slow the progression of Parkinson's disease, according to a new study.
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