Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that is toxic when too much of it is released by excessive neuronal activity or by brain injury. Some researchers have also proposed that glutamate toxicity drives the neurodegeneration...
A study published in tomorrow's Science provides new details of how the transcription factor NF-κB protects cells from apoptosis. C.-Y. Wang and colleagues report they have identified four genes that are targets of NF-κB activity...
A novel brain-imaging agent that binds selectively to dopamine transporter molecules promises to open up a window on the functioning of the brain's dopamine system. Dopamine is one of the brain's major neurotransmitters...
Puny polymer pellets show promise as a vehicle for delivering nerve-growth factor (NGF) to the basal forebrain, where the substance could rescue or even regenerate neurons damaged by Alzheimer's disease...
A 15-year study involving more than 100 families and 1,000 individuals has provided the first strong evidence of genetic susceptiblity to schizophrenia, within a stretch of chormosome 13...
For many families caring for an Alzheimer's patient, it is not the memory impairment per se that drives them to place their loved one in a nursing home, so much as the agitation, aggression and even violence that demented patients frequently exhibit...
Stress and glucocorticoids (hormones produced in response to stress) are known to impair the acquisition and storage of new information. But stress also hinders the ability to recall memories...
It has been theorized that cell membranes contain stable regions consisting of glycolipids and cholesterol. They are called detergent-insoluble glycolipid-enriched membrane domains (DIGs)...
Transcription factors of the nuclear factor-kB/rel (NF-kB) family may be important in cell survival by regulating unidentified, antiapoptotic genes. One such gene that protects cells from apoptosis...
Acetylcholine has different effects on the excitability of different neuronal types, according to work by Xiang, et al, published in today's Science. The researchers examined two subtypes of interneurons in layer V of rat visual cortex...
Maybe it is time to give up steak in order to live longer—at least if you are a fruit fly. According to a study published today in Science, a diet of sugar keeps flies in a metabolic "waiting mode," in which both reproduction and death rates are low...
An enzyme in <em>Caenorhabditis elegans</em> affects the rate at which the dainty worms age, by modulating the cellular response to oxidative stress...
Because presenilin was discovered in positional cloning experiments involving large familial Alzheimer's disease kindreds, there were no previous data concerning its biological function. As a result...
A study published last year by Margaret Pericak-Vance et al. (JAMA 1997;278) reported a putative locus for late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) at chromosome 12p11-12, and set off a race to confirm and nail down the gene...