The map of the genetic activity of the risk genes that affect the central nervous system (CNS) reveals the molecular signatures associated with the neurological pathologies in this organ. A study by researchers at McGill University in Canada and the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Washington compared 40 brain diseases with this technology and classified them into five groups whose members shared the same transcriptional pattern.

The brain is plastic throughout life, but never more so than from birth to young adulthood. It increases its volume by developing dendrites and axons that connect neurons in to each other, forming new pathways to process the information that it will store. Those connections require maintenance. And if a connection is unsuccessful, better to delete it than to keep it. This is known as synaptic pruning and occurs from childhood to the age of 20. Now, a group of scientists from the University of Cambridge and Fudan University has described a neuropsychopathological (NP) factor that explains why inappropriate pruning in adolescence is related to mental health disorders.

A unique characteristic of Helicobacter pylori could serve to end infections of this gastric bacterium. A group of scientists from the University of Munich have found that this pathogen has a strategic point in its mitochondrial respiratory complex I that could be targeted with inhibitors. “We did not look for respiration inhibitors in the first place,” co-senior author Wolfgang Fischer told BioWorld. “We screened libraries with a reporter assay, looking for something different, a particular protein secretion, the secretion system type (T4SS). Then, we found that a lot of compounds inhibit this process. From these compounds, we came to the point that they are actually respiration inhibitors,” he explained.

The analysis of thousands of proteins in the brain has revealed the association of astrocytes with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A proteomic study by researchers from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) has identified them in different cellular compartments of astrocytes and neurons. One such protein, the postsynaptic protein SAPAP3, appeared to regulate the organization of the actin cytoskeleton. Its deficit in astrocytes could cause OCD.