(Press-News.org) When Geoffrey Murphy, Ph.D., talks about plastic structures, he's not talking about the same thing as Mr. McGuire in The Graduate. To Murphy, an associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Michigan Medical School, plasticity refers to the brain's ability to change as we learn.
Murphy's lab, in collaboration with U-M's Neurodevelopment and Regeneration Laboratory run by Jack Parent, M.D., recently showed how the plasticity of the brain allowed mice to restore critical functions related to learning and memory after the scientists suppressed the animals' ability to make certain new brain cells.
The findings, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, bring scientists one step closer to isolating the mechanisms by which the brain compensates for disruptions and reroutes neural functioning – which could ultimately lead to treatments for cognitive impairments in humans caused by disease and aging.
"It's amazing how the brain is capable of reorganizing itself in this manner," says Murphy, co-senior author of the study and researcher at U-M's Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute. "Right now, we're still figuring out exactly how the brain accomplishes all this at the molecular level, but it's sort of comforting to know that our brains are keeping track of all of this for us."
In previous research, the scientists had found that restricting cell division in the hippocampuses of mice using radiation or genetic manipulation resulted in reduced functioning in a cellular mechanism important to memory formation known as long-term potentiation.
But in this study, the researchers demonstrated that the disruption is only temporary and within six weeks, the mouse brains were able to compensate for the disruption and restore plasticity, says Parent, the study's other senior author, a researcher with the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and associate professor of neurology at the U-M Medical School.
After halting the ongoing growth of key brain cells in adult mice, the researchers found the brain circuitry compensated for the disruption by enabling existing neurons to be more active. The existing neurons also had longer life spans than when new cells were continuously being made.
"The results suggest that the birth of brain cells in the adult, which was experimentally disrupted, must be really important – important enough for the whole system to reorganize in response to its loss," Parent says.
INFORMATION:
Additional Authors: Benjamin H. Singer, Ph.D., Amy E. Gamelli, Ph.D., Cynthia L. Fuller, Ph.D., Stephanie J. Temme, all of U-M
Disclosures: None.
Funding: The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Temme is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and was also supported by a U-M Rackham Merit Fellowship.
Citation: "Compensatory network changes in the dentate gyrus restore long-term potentiation following ablation of neurogenesis in young-adult mice," PNAS Online Early Edition, March 14, 2011.
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Berkeley — A major milestone in microfluidics could soon lead to stand-alone, self-powered chips that can diagnose diseases within minutes. The device, developed by an international team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, Dublin City University in Ireland and Universidad de Valparaíso Chile, is able to process whole blood samples without the use of external tubing and extra components.
The researchers have dubbed the device SIMBAS, which stands for Self-powered Integrated Microfluidic Blood Analysis System. SIMBAS appeared as the cover story ...
There are potential legal ramifications for physicians of patients who drive with cognitive impairment, according to a study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.
Between 20 and 60 percent of patients with cirrhosis (a condition in which the liver is permanently scarred or injured by chronic conditions and diseases) are affected by a peculiar kind of cognitive impairment, also known as hepatic encephalopathy (HE), which can range from mild to overt. This impairment can include ...
MADISON, WI MARCH 17, 2011 – Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas and a precursor to compounds that contribute to the destruction of the ozone. Intensively managed, grazed pastures are responsible for an increase in nitrous oxide emissions from grazing animals' excrement. Biochar is potentially a mitigation option for reducing the world's elevated carbon dioxide emissions, since the embodied carbon can be sequestered in the soil. Biochar also has the potential to beneficially alter soil nitrogen transformations.
Laboratory tests have indicated that adding biochar ...
The team of Prof. Dr. Stefan Herlitze, the Chair of the Department of Zoology and Neurobiology at RUB, showed that the diseases broke out in mice if, a week after birth, they eliminated a particular protein in the cerebellum which regulates the influx of ions into nerve cells. "It's the first time that we have gained an insight into the origin of these diseases" said Prof. Herlitze. "We can now start conducting research to develop new therapeutic approaches."
Defective calcium channels as a cause of disease
Various forms of epilepsy, coordination disturbances (ataxias) ...
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Scientists of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) in Innsbruck, Austria, have reached a milestone in the exploration of quantum gas mixtures. In an international first, the...
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Scientists of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) in Innsbruck, Austria, have reached a milestone in the exploration of quantum gas mixtures. In an international first, the research group led by Rudolf ...
The downtown free bingo site has been bringing in themed promotions throughout the week and today's offers may boost players' balances significantly.
City Bingo started the week with 'Irish Luck', a bingo bonus deal that gives the three biggest spenders at the site a cash reward. GBP100, GBP50 and GBP25 will be paid out until the end of the week to the three players depositing the largest amount of funds. These prizes could well be in addition to any bingo wins that users have enjoyed.
Today represents perhaps the best opportunity for City Bingo players to win big ...
DNA contains all of the genetic instructions that make us who we are, and maintaining the integrity of our DNA over the course of a lifetime is a critical, yet complex part of the aging process. In an important, albeit early step forward, scientists have discovered how DNA maintenance is regulated, opening the door to interventions that may enhance the body's natural preservation of genetic information.
The new findings may help researchers delay the onset of aging and aging-related diseases by curbing the loss or damage of our genetic makeup, which makes us more susceptible ...
Clostridium difficile is a health problem that affects hundreds of thousands of patients and costs $10 billion to $20 billion every year in North America. Researchers from the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada say they are gaining a deeper understanding of this disease and are closer to developing a novel treatment using antibodies from llamas.
"We have found that relatively simple antibodies can interfere with the disease-causing toxins from C. difficile," says paper co-author Dr. Kenneth Ng, an associate professor of biological sciences ...
INDIANAPOLIS – A new study, conducted by researchers from the Regenstrief Institute and the schools of medicine at Indiana University and Moi University, is one of the first to explore and demonstrate the impact of electronic record systems on quality of medical care in a developing country.
In a paper published in the March 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Martin Chieng Were, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine and a Regenstrief Institute investigator, and colleagues report that computer-generated ...
March 18, 2011, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan — Canada is delivering on its commitment to help the world's most vulnerable, thanks to new developments which will provide an affordable, reliable, and stable treatment for malaria that will save millions of lives, especially those of women and children in Africa. The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, along with Mr. Brad Trost, Member of Parliament for Saskatoon–Humboldt, announced the breakthrough today and highlighted the Government's research support.
"Our government is committed to improving ...
