2.02.2006
Protein May Fend off Memory Loss
Coglabs Newswire...Feb. 2 -- A Yale study finds raising the level of a protein that plays a role in spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis cuts Alzheimer's disease-causing plaque.
Yale School of Medicine researcher Dr. Stephen Strittmatter, senior author of the study, said the finding indicates pharmacological methods to increase the protein NogoReceptor might be a way to treat deficits associated with Alzheimer's disease.
Strittmatter, co-director of Yale's Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair program, previously determined a molecular pathway involving the NogoReceptor protein plays a crucial role in determining whether nerve fibers grow or remain stationary in the adult brain. The protein inhibits the regeneration of axonal nerve fibers in injured spinal cords and in neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
The new study appears in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Yale School of Medicine researcher Dr. Stephen Strittmatter, senior author of the study, said the finding indicates pharmacological methods to increase the protein NogoReceptor might be a way to treat deficits associated with Alzheimer's disease.
Strittmatter, co-director of Yale's Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair program, previously determined a molecular pathway involving the NogoReceptor protein plays a crucial role in determining whether nerve fibers grow or remain stationary in the adult brain. The protein inhibits the regeneration of axonal nerve fibers in injured spinal cords and in neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
The new study appears in the Journal of Neuroscience.
The Geometric Brain
A knowledge of geometry is crosscultural and innate.
Cognitive tests often report this finding.
Here is the piece
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amazonian hunter-gatherers who lack written language and who have never seen a math book score highly on basic tests of geometric concepts, researchers said on Thursday in a study that suggests geometry may be hard-wired into the brain.
Adults and children alike showed a clear grasp of concepts such as where the center of a circle is and the logical extension of a straight line, the researchers report in this week's issue of the journal Science.
Stanislas Dehaene of the College de France in Paris and colleagues tested 14 children and 30 adults of an Amazonian group called the Munduruku, and compared their findings to tests of U.S. adults and children.
"Munduruku children and adults spontaneously made use of basic geometric concepts such as points, lines, parallelism, or right angles to detect intruders in simple pictures, and they used distance, angle, and sense relationships in geometrical maps to locate hidden objects," they wrote....
Cognitive tests often report this finding.
Here is the piece
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amazonian hunter-gatherers who lack written language and who have never seen a math book score highly on basic tests of geometric concepts, researchers said on Thursday in a study that suggests geometry may be hard-wired into the brain.
Adults and children alike showed a clear grasp of concepts such as where the center of a circle is and the logical extension of a straight line, the researchers report in this week's issue of the journal Science.
Stanislas Dehaene of the College de France in Paris and colleagues tested 14 children and 30 adults of an Amazonian group called the Munduruku, and compared their findings to tests of U.S. adults and children.
"Munduruku children and adults spontaneously made use of basic geometric concepts such as points, lines, parallelism, or right angles to detect intruders in simple pictures, and they used distance, angle, and sense relationships in geometrical maps to locate hidden objects," they wrote....
