Using specimens that were collected over three decades from zoos, researchers at Humboldt University of Berlin examined facial motor control in African and Asian elephants. As described in their recent paper in Science Advances, they examined cell number, size, and position in the facial nucleus; conducted quantitative nerve tracing, and performed comparative analyses with other animals and between the two elephant types. The researchers found...
Read More
The Image Volume Fractionator probe, available in Stereo Investigator - Cleared Tissue Edition, is facilitating huge efficiency gains for quantifying the number of cells. At Dr. Patrick R. Hof’s lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, researchers imaged the cerebral cortex using light-sheet fluorescence microscopy and quantified the number of neurons, including those that express proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia, using...
Read More
[caption id="attachment_6326" align="aligncenter" width="600"] An immunostained image of myelin basic protein in the cerebella of a mouse brain with an iron-sufficient diet compared with the brain of a mouse exposed to alcohol and fed an iron-insufficient diet. It shows the reduced cerebellar size due to the ID-alcohol combination. Green is MBP immunostain, blue is DAPI for nuclei. Image courtesy of Susan Smith, PhD.[/caption] If a pregnant...
Read More
[caption id="attachment_6175" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Phosphorylated tau pS422 immunoreactive profiles (dark brown) in the cortex of P301S mice after repetitive mild TBI. Image courtesy of Dr. Leyan Xu, Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University.[/caption] Over the course of a football game or a boxing match, athletes may experience a series of mild concussions. Some of these athletes develop a condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a...
Read More
The human brain undergoes extraordinary development in utero, with major growth continuing throughout childhood, especially during the first year. Scientists know a lot about how the neurons and circuits of the human brain develop in infancy, but a lack of specific knowledge about key elements has left doctors mystified by certain childhood disorders like SIDS and autism. Neuroscientists at Ludwig-Maximillians-University of Munich have made new revelations...
Read More
[caption id="attachment_5185" align="aligncenter" width="584"] The granule cell layer of the dentate gyrus. Image provided by Mark Maynard.[/caption] Binge drinking damages brain regions responsible for memory, decision-making, and behavioral control. After a binge, the brain begins to heal itself but not much is known about this self-repair process. In a study published in PLoS ONE, researchers used rats to find that binge drinking damages the hippocampus, and...
Read More
A montage of three images of single striatal neurons transfected with a disease-associated version of huntingtin, the protein that causes Huntington's disease; By: Dr. Steven Finkbeiner, Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease, The Taube-Koret Center for Huntington's Disease Research, and the University of California San Francisco; licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Patients with Huntington's disease deteriorate physically, cognitively, and emotionally. There is no cure for the inherited...
Read More
Each year, nearly ninety thousand children are born extremely premature in the United States – that is, before 28 weeks gestation. Most of them survive, but about half the survivors suffer from severe health problems throughout their childhood and into adulthood, including learning and behavioral disorders such as ADHD. “Treatment options are clearly urgently required to prevent the brain damage and associated memory deficits that follow...
Read More If one area isn't working, another part can step in. Plasticity is one of the brain's most beautiful attributes. Recent research has documented the organ's ability to compensate in the face of damage, and now a new study identifies a key region for compensation when the damage occurs in the hippocampus. The region is the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). It's an integral part of the hippocampal-prefrontal-amygdala...
Read More
Obstetricians and midwifes have long hailed the benefits of folic acid during pregnancy. Now new research offers evidence that choline is another important nutrient for the developing fetus. Found in foods like eggs and cauliflower, choline is known to aid healthy liver function. But in the past few years, studies have shown that the nutrient also plays a role in brain development. One recent study...
Read More