by Rockefeller University Press Researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine have discovered that nicotine promotes the spread of lung cancer cells into the brain, where they can form deadly metastatic tumors. The study, which will be published June 4 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), suggests that nicotine replacement therapies may not be...
by The Scripps Research Institute Many cases of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) may result from problems in immune cells that normally work to trim back unneeded brain connections in early life, suggests a new study led by scientists at Scripps Research. The study, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, examined the effects of a set of...
Several years ago, MIT neuroscientists showed that they could dramatically reduce the amyloid plaques seen Alzheimer’sdisease in mice simply by exposing the animals to light flickering at a specific frequency. In a new study, the researchers have found that this treatment has widespread effects at the cellular level, and it helps not just neurons but also...
by VIB (the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) A Leuven research team led by Prof. Bart De Strooper (VIB-KU Leuven, UK DRI) studied how specialized brain cells called microglia respond to the accumulation of toxic proteins in the brain, a feature typical of Alzheimer’s. The three major disease risk factors for Alzheimer’s—age, sex and genetics—all affect microglia response, raising the possibility that drugs that modulate...
July 23, 2018, The Mount Sinai Hospital A new Mount Sinai study, published July 23 in the journal Nature Neuroscience, provides important insight into how microglia, cells that form a branch of the immune system inside the brain, go about their job of clearing out dying and non-functional neurons—and how they sometimes mistakenly attack healthy neurons, an...
For the first time, EMBL* researchers have captured microglia nibbling on brain synapses. Their findings show that the special glial cells help synapses grow and rearrange, demonstrating the essential role of microglia in brain development. Nature Communications will publish the results on March 26. Around one in ten cells in your brain are microglia. Cousins of macrophages,...
Highlights Efficient protocol to generate human microglia from PSCs iPSC-derived microglia have ramified morphology and motile processes Expression and cytokine profiles of iPSC-derived microglia resemble primary microglia iPSC-derived microglia can phagocytose beads and respond to ADP Summary Microglia, the immune cells of the brain, are crucial to proper development and maintenance of the CNS, and...
