(Press-News.org) A team of IRCM researchers, led by Dr. Frédéric Charron, recently uncovered a nerve cell's internal clock, used during embryonic development. The discovery was made in collaboration with Dr. Alyson Fournier's laboratory at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Published today in the prestigious scientific journal Neuron, this breakthrough could lead to the development of new tools to repair and regenerate nerve cells following injuries to the central nervous system.
Researchers in Dr. Charron's laboratory study neurons, which are the nerve cells that make up the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). They want to better understand how neurons navigate through the developing embryo to arrive at their correct destination.
"To properly form neural circuits, developing axons (long extensions of neurons that form nerves) follow external signals to reach the right targets," says Dr. Frédéric Charron, Director of the Molecular Biology of Neural Development research unit at the IRCM. "We discovered that nerve cells also have an internal clock, which changes their response to external signals as they develop over time."
For this research project, IRCM scientists focused on the Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) protein, which gives cells important information for the embryo to develop properly and plays a critical role in the development of the central nervous system.
"It is known that axons follow the Shh signal during their development," explains Dr. Patricia Yam, research associate in Dr. Charron's laboratory and first author of the study. "However, axons change their behaviour once they reach this protein, and this has been a mystery for the scientific community. We found that a nerve cell's internal clock switches its response to external signals when it reaches the Shh protein, at which time it becomes repelled by the Shh signal rather than following it."
"Our findings therefore showed that more than one system is involved in directing axon pathfinding during development," adds Dr. Yam. "Not only do nerve cells respond to external signals, but they also have an internal control system. This discovery is important because it offers new possibilities for developing techniques to regenerate and repair damaged nerve cells. Along with trying to modify external factors, we can now also consider modifying elements inside a cell in order to change its behaviour."
Injuries to the central nervous system affect thousands of Canadians every year, and can lead to lifelong disabilities. Most often caused by an accident, stroke or disease, these injuries are very difficult to repair. New tools are therefore required to repair damage to the central nervous system, including techniques that could potentially regenerate nerve cells.
"The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is delighted to support research aimed at improving the lives of individuals with damage to the brain or spinal cord," says Dr. Anthony Phillips, Scientific Director of CIHR's Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction. ''Nerve cell repair and regeneration remains an important health challenge, and we believe that Dr. Charron's research findings will contribute to the solution."
INFORMATION:
About the research project
This research project was funded by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Peter Lougheed Medical Research Foundation, the McGill Program in NeuroEngineering and the Fonds de recherche de Québec – Santé (FRQS). The article published in Neuron was a collaborative project between Dr. Charron's team and Dr. Alyson Fournier's laboratory at the Montreal Neurological Institute (Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery). Collaborators from the IRCM include Steves Morin, W. Todd Farmer and Léa Lepelletier.
For more information on this scientific breakthrough, please refer to the article summary published online by Neuron: www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(12)00852-5.
About Dr. Frédéric Charron
Frédéric Charron obtained his PhD in experimental medicine from McGill University. He is an Associate IRCM Research Professor and Director of the Molecular Biology of Neural Development research unit. Dr. Charron is also Associate Professor-Researcher in the Department of Medicine at the Université de Montréal, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine (Division of Experimental Medicine), the Department of Biology, and the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at McGill University. In addition, he is a member of the McGill Integrated Program in Neuroscience, the Montreal Regional Brain Tumor Research Group at the Montreal Neurological Institute, and the Centre of Excellence in Neurosciences (CENUM) at the Université de Montréal. Dr. Charron is a Research Scholar from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS). For more information, visit www.ircm.qc.ca/charron.
About the IRCM
Founded in 1967, the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) is currently comprised of 37 research units in various fields, namely immunity and viral infections, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, cancer, neurobiology and development, systems biology and medicinal chemistry. It also houses three specialized research clinics, eight core facilities and three research platforms with state-of-the-art equipment. The IRCM employs 425 people and is an independent institution affiliated with the Université de Montréal. The IRCM clinic is associated to the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM). The IRCM also maintains a long-standing association with McGill University.
About the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
CIHR is the Government of Canada's health research investment agency. CIHR's mission is to create new scientific knowledge and enable its translation into better health, more effective health services and products, and a stronger Canadian health care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to more than 14,100 health researchers and trainees across Canada.
END
Scientists from The Danish Stem Cell Center (DanStem) at the University of Copenhagen are contributing important knowledge about how stem cells develop best into insulin-producing cells. In the long term this new knowledge can improve diabetes treatment with cell therapy. The results have just been published in the scientific journal Cell Reports.
Stem cells are responsible for tissue growth and tissue repair after injury. Therefore, the discovery that these vital cells grow better in a three-dimensional environment is important for the future treatment of disease with ...
NORFOLK, VA -- Surgeons at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters (CHKD) have fitted a patient with a device that might eliminate the need for surgery in some patients with one of the world's most common chest deformities, pectus excavatum, often called sunken chest syndrome.
Known as the vacuum bell, it works much like devices in body shops that use sustained vacuum to pop out a dent.
"Years from now, we may look at the surgeries and realize that many of these conditions could have been corrected with vacuum devices," said Dr. Robert J. Obermeyer, who is leading ...
Immune globulin replacement began decades ago as a treatment for patients who could not make their own protective antibodies, but has proven to have much broader benefits than originally expected. With new uses regularly being discovered for this limited and expensive resource, including as a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease, now is the time to discover exactly how intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) treatments work, and to engineer a protein that can provide similar benefits, writes Erwin Gelfand, MD, chair of pediatrics at National Jewish Health in the November ...
A hungry mantis shrimp may be the last thing that a passing fish sees before it is snatched from the water by the predator. Maya deVries from the University of California, Berkeley, says 'Spearer mantis shrimps stay in their sandy burrows and they wait for a fast-moving prey item to come by, but then they come out of nowhere and grab the prey with their long skinny appendages.' However, little was know about how these vicious predators unleash their lightning-fast attacks. According to deVries, the spearing shrimp are closely related to smasher mantis shrimps, which pulverise ...
VIDEO:
In this video, a patient reads words with the Argus II setup using the camera and not the direct braille stimulation.
Click here for more information.
For the very first time researchers have streamed braille patterns directly into a blind patient's retina, allowing him to read four-letter words accurately and quickly with an ocular neuroprosthetic device. The device, the Argus II, has been implanted in over 50 patients, many of who can now see color, movement and ...
Discount Buses Bring Increased Risk of Death and Injury to Passengers
The ramifications from a Megabus crash in Chicago, Illinois in August that killed one person and injured 47 people continue. Illinois State Police suspect the crash was the result of a tire blowout and not necessarily driver error. The parents of the single fatality from the accident, a graduate student killed in the crash, recently brought a wrongful death suit against Megabus, Coach Leasing and the driver of the bus for improper maintenance and a failure to inspect the bus and its tires. The suit ...
Crackdown on Synthetic Drugs in Missouri
Synthetic drugs present a problem to government regulation and can often have very adverse effects on the human body. Because of the dangers, law enforcement officers and lawmakers are working to get the products out of head shops. To regulate the problem, several areas, including Missouri, are working on crackdowns with hopes to get the products off of the market once and for all.
Synthetic Drugs
Synthetic drugs are basically substances that contain chemicals very similar to those in traditional illegal drugs. The synthetic ...
Planning for a divorce after the holidays
The stress of the holiday season, along with the chance for a fresh start at the beginning of the year, makes January a popular time to divorce. Often married couples will put family ahead of personal needs until after the holiday season is over. However, if divorce is in the future, preparing for divorce can begin before the actual filing takes place in January. Planning ahead can make the process easier on everyone and protect your financial assets for the new year. While the steps below are good practice for any time of the ...
The toll of bicycle accidents
The Texas Department of Transportation and a nonprofit organization stepped up efforts to educate motorists and bicyclists in the wake of a tragic accident near Amarillo. Two bicyclists riding on a popular bicycling road were killed when a motorist struck them from behind. The driver claimed he was blinded by sunlight.
Share the Road! is a nonprofit that was created in 2010 for raising safety awareness for pedestrians. A spokesman for the organization stated that any driver on the frontage road where the accident occurred ought to be ...
Measure 11 and Oregon's Violent Crime Rate
We've all heard the saying, "If you can't do the time, don't commit the crime." It captures the sentiment that the tougher the sentence the stronger the disincentive to commit crime. While it may be easy to believe that a relationship exists between crime rates and incarceration, many criminal defense attorneys and others in the criminal justice world question the connection.
In the 1980s and mid-1990s the number of violent crimes committed in Oregon dramatically increased. Believing that a lack of deterrents created ...
