CONFERENCE COVERAGE SERIES
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting 2000
New Orleans, LA, U.S.A.
04 – 09 November 2000
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Stem Cells Drawn to Aβ
A central problem in Alzheimer's disease is to understand how Aβ affects the brain's biology, and how it contributes to neurodegeneration. A diverse array of mechanisms have been proposed...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Stem Cells Promising for Motor Neuron Disorders
Douglas Kerr and colleagues at Johns Hopkins (Abstract 209.13) reported success in using neural stem cells to restore function in an animal model of spinal motor atrophy (SMA). In SMA, the ventral horn motor neurons...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Does ApoE Contribute to Tangle Formation?
One of the earliest clues that apoE may contribute to AD pathology was the immunohistochemical demonstration by Namba and colleagues that ApoE was present in both plaques and tangles...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: A Glimpse into the Future?
The award for most aesthetically pleasing presentation almost certainly could go to Dr. Paul Thompson, who reviewed recent advances being made by a UCLA team in developing AD-specific brain atlases for assessing alterations in the brain over time...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Triumph of the NERD
At least I hope they will come. Brian Cummings presented an overview of a web-based database for Alzheimer’s cases (known as the Neuropathological Examination Research Database or NERD) that could serve as a model for other AD centers...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: TrkA Receptors Down-regulated in MCI
It has previously been reported that the nerve growth factor (NGF) receptor trkA is depleted within the nucleus basalis, which is selectively damaged in early Alzheimer's disease...
Soc for Neurosci Annual Meeting: Explaining Finicky Toxicity of Aβ
It's a poorly kept secret that Aβ peptides are highly inconsistent in their neurotoxic properties. One batch of synthetic peptide will kill neurons handily, while another will be benign...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: The Ghost of D’Arcy Thompson
What do ßamyloid, buckyballs, and dark matter have in common? They were all mentioned in an intriguing presentation by Dr. Westlind-Danielsson (AstraZeneca, Abstract 299.2) on the formation of spheroidal "supramolecular structures"...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: ApoE Critical for Both Plaque and Tangle Formation?
Being both an active scientist and a part-time reporter leads to some interesting situations. Most of the time, my scientific background could be considered an advantage when evaluating reports because...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: LRP: Guilt by Association
One of the most daunting tasks facing attendees of this gigantic neuroscience data exchange (dare I say "flea market"?) is identifying signals in the noise (speaking both scientifically and literally). One approach is to sit through slide sessions...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Immunization of Mice and Men
What is the latest on the immunization of mice and men with Aβ? Will we be celebrating victory over Alzheimer’s disease in a few years (and looking for new jobs), or has the story been overrated?...
Soc for Neurosci Ann Mtg: β-Amyloid Triggers CD40 Expression in Microglia
CD40 is a member of the TNF receptor superfamily, which includes TNFR-1, TNFR-2, Fas, CD27, RANK, DR4 (TRAIL-R1), DR5 (TRAIL-R2), and DR6, as well as assorted decoy receptors (e.g., DcR-1/TRAIL-3)...
Society for Neurosci Ann Mtg: Passive Aβ Immunization Works in Mice
A current working hypothesis in the field of AD research is that preventing the accumulation of Aß peptides will slow or prevent cognitive decline. Two main strategies for accomplishing this goal have been pursued in recent years...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Plaques Vanish Before Our Very Eyes
Last year, Brad Hyman’s group reported on their ability to image amyloid plaques in the brains of live PDAPP Tg mice. Plaques could be detected as deep as 200 microns and the same plaques could be imaged...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: The Calcium-Presenilin Connection
Several presentations focused on the role of presenilins in calcium signaling pathways. Leissring and LaFerla (Abstract 474.7) reported that cells from mutant PS1 knockin mice are deficient in capacitative calcium entry...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Synuclein and Parkin Roundup
The meeting in New Orleans demonstrated that the biology of α-synuclein and parkin are progressing at a rapid pace...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: COX-2 Gene Expression Parallels AD Progression
The molecular and genetic mechanisms involved in the initiation and progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are poorly understood. One emerging player in the proinflammatory cycle operating in AD brain...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Down-regulation of Transcription Factors in AD
Widespread reports of changes in RNA message abundance and specific RNA message levels in senescent cultured primary neural cells, in normal aging human brain and especially in Alzheimer’s disease-afflicted neocortex and hippocampus suggest...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: More Potential AD Gene Loci from NIMH Study
Bertram et al. (301.7), evaluated Alzheimer’s disease (AD) candidate genes and AD chromosomal regions of interest (`30 cM) from the whole genome scans available...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Presenilin and COX-2 Expression Induced by Oxidative Stress
The presenilin-1 and -2 (PS1, PS2) genes encode integral transmembrane proteins putatively involved in cell-cell recognition, cell-fate determination, intercellular signaling and Aβ peptide formation...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Chromosome Missegregation Linked to PS Mutations
Presenilin-1 and -2 (PS1, PS2) gene mutations appear to cause the majority of cases of early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease (EO-FAD). In this presentation Potter et al. (492.2) presented data...
Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: Role of Nicastrin-Presenilin Complexes
Presenilin-1 and -2 (PS1 and PS2) are members of a (growing) family of genes which encode polytopic integral transmembrane proteins homologous to the Notch cell surface receptors of <em>Drosophila</em>...