How the brain works and how the brain is affected by disease are mysteries in large part because neurons are so dynamic, numerous, and complex. Neurolucida 360, a revolutionary, new software product from MBF Bioscience, enables neuroscientists to uncover more information about neurons at a faster rate. “Neurolucida 360 is a technological revolution” says Jack Glaser, President of MBF Bioscience. “It is the state-of-the-art tool for neuroscientists to analyze...
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[caption id="attachment_6094" align="alignright" width="231"] Micrograph of cholinergic neurons in the nucleus basalis of Meynert. Image from Wikipedia.[/caption] Cholinergic neurons degenerate at devastating rates in Alzheimer's disease, but Dr. Mark Tuszynski and his team at the University of California, San Diego may have found a way to slow the decline. Their study, published in JAMA Neurology, reports that nerve growth factor gene therapy increased the size, axonal sprouting, and signaling of cholinergic neurons...
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Explosions can tear apart buildings, send shrapnel flying, and hurtle humans into the air. But explosions also cause damage in ways that aren't as visually apparent. Scientists say the force of a blast can cause brain damage, but questions linger about how the symptoms that emerge after a blast-induced traumatic brain injury are connected to the initial trauma. In their quest to learn more about how symptoms...
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[caption id="attachment_5991" align="aligncenter" width="632"] Dr. Paul Manger's new system developed by MBF Bioscience for analyzing large mammalian brain specimens[/caption] Dr. Paul Manger, Research Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, studies the brain anatomy of various animals to better understand the relationship between brain structure and function. Some of the mammals he studies have very large brains that don't fit under a conventional research...
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[caption id="attachment_5635" align="aligncenter" width="584"] Representative dendrites of dentate gyrus neurons of Siberian hamsters injected with melatonin (stained with Cresyl violet). Ikeno et al found hamsters injected with melatonin displayed decreased spine density on neurons in the dentate gyrus. Image courtesy of Tomoko Ikeno, Ph.D.[/caption] Night falls and a powerful hormone called melatonin kicks in. The gears of the circadian clock are turning as you get ready...
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In 2014 researchers used Stereo Investigator in 698 peer-reviewed papers - citing it almost three times more than all other stereology systems combined. Researchers tell us they use Stereo Investigator because: it works with many different microscopes and imaging technologies it provides unbiased data about neuron populations and regions of interest it comes with strong technical and research support provided by MBF Bioscience [caption id="attachment_5790" align="alignnone" width="1394"] source: google scholar[/caption] Dr. Mark West, co-developer of...
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[caption id="attachment_5546" align="aligncenter" width="401"] A representative confocal image of spinal cord tissue fluorescently immunolabeled for SC121 (red) in conjunction with GFAP (green) – markers that allowed researchers to quantify stem cell differentiation and migration. (Image provided by study author Dr. Aileen J. Anderson)[/caption] Research has shown that transplanting human neural stem cells into damaged spinal cords restores locomotor function in a mouse model of spinal cord injury1. Researchers...
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[caption id="attachment_5745" align="aligncenter" width="307"] Golgi-stained human brain tissue from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.[/caption] Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are very different mental illnesses, but researchers are discovering evidence that the two disorders have some common pathologies. According to a recent study, a shared characteristic appears to be dendritic spine loss. The researchers used Neurolucida to study pyramidal cells in human brain tissue from individuals with schizophrenia (n=14), individuals with bipolar...
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[caption id="attachment_5670" align="aligncenter" width="210"] Drs. May-Britt and Edvard Moser Image from GEIR MOGEN / NTNU[/caption] Drs. May-Britt and Edvard Moser were awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the cells that form a network for spatial navigation in the brain, and we're proud to say they are MBF Bioscience customers and used Neurolucida in their research. In 2006, the Norwegian husband and wife...
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[caption id="attachment_5617" align="alignnone" width="700"] This image stack was used in the study to analyze spine density. Image courtesy of Tara Chowdhury, Ph.D. first author of the study.[/caption] To find out how anorexia nervosa changes the brain, scientists at New York University are studying a rat model of the disease called activity-based anorexia (ABA). Previously, they discovered that ABA rats develop unusually robust dendritic branching of neurons...
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