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In a recent study published in Cell Reports entitled “BDNF Reduces Toxic Extrasynaptic NMDA Receptor Signaling via Synaptic NMDA Receptors and Nuclear Calcium-induced Transcription of inhba/Activin A“, published in Cell Reports, researchers from Heidelberg University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Neurosciences found that activated neurons produce…

Could patients with Huntington’s disease (HD) who are of European ancestry be related by a distant individual? Perhaps, according to a study from the Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Researchers led by Dr. Jong-Min Lee and Dr. James F. Gusella conducted an investigation into…

The New York Blood Center (NYBC), one of the largest independent, community-based blood centers in the country, serving the more than 20 million people who live in the New York metropolitan area, recently announced it has partnered with the University of California Davis Health System to develop specialized lines of stem…

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative genetic disorder that affects muscle coordination, cognitive reduction and behavioral symptoms. Now, a recent study from MIT researchers entitled “Habit Learning by Naive Macaques Is Marked by Response Sharpening of Striatal Neurons Representing the Cost and Outcome of Acquired Action…

The Genetic Modifiers of Huntington’s Disease (GeM-HD) Consortium, an international team of scientists formed to find treatments for this disorder, identified specific genetic sites on two chromosomes that determine the beginning of neurological symptoms in Huntington’s patients. The study entitled “Identification of Genetic Factors that Modify Clinical Onset…

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Mellon University recently reported the first non-invasive brain-imaging tool to visualize the brain’s basal ganglia regions, which are thought to be defective in some neurological disorders including Huntington’s disease. The study entitled “In vivo characterization of…

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. has recently announced that its New Drug Application (NDA) for SD-809 (deutetrabenazine) was accepted by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat chorea linked with Huntington’s disease (HD). HD is a fatal and very rare neurodegenerative disorder that results in the progressive damage of brain’s nerve cells; in western countries, it…

A new study recently published in the journal Cell reported the finding of new genetic variants that can accelerate or delay disease onset in patients with Huntington’s disease. The study is entitled “Identification of Genetic Factors that Modify Clinical Onset of Huntington’s Disease” and…

Researchers from The Rockefeller University, New York, in collaboration with Columbia University, New York, have recently released results from a study in which they identified the molecular changes that results in the loss of neurons in Parkinson’s disease (PD); a discovery that may have significant implications in discovering…

A study recently published in the journal Molecular Cell revealed a new role played by polyglutamine repeats in addition to their link to neurodegenerative disorders. The study is entitled “Variable Glutamine-Rich Repeats Modulate Transcription Factor Activity” and was led by researchers at the Katholieke Universiteit (KU)…