Alzheimer's disease & dementia

Untangling the role of tau in Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is a brain disorder that causes neurons to die, slowly destroying memory and thinking skills. It's the most common type of dementia, impacting an estimated 50 million people worldwide, and is a particularly ...

Medical research

Biologists identify mechanisms of embryonic wound repair

It's like something out of a science-fiction movie - time-lapse photography showing how wounds in embryos of fruit flies heal themselves. The images are not only real; they shed light on ways to improve wound recovery in ...

Medical research

Lipids boost the brain

Consuming oils with high polyunsaturated fatty acid content, in particular those containing omega-3s, is beneficial for the health. But the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are poorly known. Researchers at the Institut ...

Neuroscience

Steering the filaments of the developing brain

During brain development, nerve fibers grow and extend to form brain circuits. This growth is guided by molecular cues (Fig. 1), but exactly how these cues guide axon extension has been unclear. Takuro Tojima and colleagues ...

Medical research

More intestinal cells than thought can absorb larger particles

The small intestine employs more cells and mechanisms than scientists previously thought to absorb relatively large particles, such as those that could encapsulate protein-based therapeutics like insulin, according to a new ...

Medical research

Fitting Kv potassium channels in the PIP2 puzzle

A recent study in the Journal of General Physiology brings new insights to an area of ion channel regulation: whether voltage-gated potassium (Kv) channels can be regulated by physiological changes to PIP2.

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Endocytosis

Endocytosis is a process by which cells absorb molecules (such as proteins) by engulfing them. It is used by all cells of the body because most substances important to them are large polar molecules that cannot pass through the hydrophobic plasma or cell membrane. The process which is the opposite to endocytosis is exocytosis.

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