A Massachusetts Institute of Technology-led team has identified distinct midbrain circuits that contributed to both motor and psychiatric symptoms of Parkinson's disease in animal models. Activating the circuits could reverse both types of symptoms.
A central assumption about so-called synonymous mutations, which are changes in the coding sequence of proteins that do not lead to changes in its amino acid sequence, is being questioned by a study published in the June 8, 2022, issue of Nature.
Researchers have long known that the developmental regulator WNT5A plays a role in the dissemination of tumor cells. Now, investigators from Johns Hopkins University have discovered that its suppression plays a role in the growth of metastases after a period of dormancy as well.
Two studies published back to back in Nature have looked at the accumulation of mutations in blood-forming stem cells with age, gaining new insights into how the overall landscape of such cells changes across the lifespan.
Four scientists have shared the 2022 Kavli Prize in neuroscience, "for pioneering the discovery of genes underlying a range of serious brain disorders," together and separately.
By analyzing single-cell responses to ketamine administration, a multinational team of researchers has identified a potassium channel that contributes to the long duration of ketamine administration.
In two separate studies, researchers have identified how peripheral nerve injury can lead to increased pain sensitivity. The studies were published on May 25, 2022, in Nature and May 26, 2022, in Science, respectively. The mechanisms they identify could lead to new therapeutic approaches to chronic pain and/or pain hypersensitivity.
A new study is shedding further light on the link between aging and neurodegenerative disease, after researchers found that protein turnover occurs about 20% slower in the brains of older mice compared with younger mice, affecting distinct pathways linked to these diseases.
New research points a finger at a previously unknown long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) as playing a critical role in activating nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kappaB) inflammatory responses and driving the progression of osteoarthritis of the knee.