science newsletter: Science News SciGuru.com

Παρασκευή 19 Απριλίου 2013

Science News SciGuru.com

First steps of synapse building is captured in live zebra fish embryos
Anesthesia increases success rates of turning breech babies, reduces delivery costs, study finds
Bursts of Brain Activity May Protect Against Alzheimer's Disease

First steps of synapse building is captured in live zebra fish embryos

Posted: 18 Apr 2013 10:10 AM PDT

Using spinning disk microscopy on barely day-old zebra fish embryos, University of Oregon scientists have gained a new window on how synapse-building components move to worksites in the central nervous system.

What researchers captured in these see-through embryos — in what may be one of the first views of early glutamate-driven synapse formation in a living vertebrate — were orderly movements of protein-carrying packets along axons to a specific site where a synapse would be formed.

Anesthesia increases success rates of turning breech babies, reduces delivery costs, study finds

Posted: 18 Apr 2013 10:00 AM PDT

When a baby is in the breech position at the end of pregnancy, obstetricians can sometimes turn the baby head-down to enable a safer vaginal birth. In the past, women were not given anesthesia during the turning procedure, which requires the physician to push on the woman's abdomen while monitoring the baby with ultrasound. But a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital shows anesthesia is cost-effective because it increases the likelihood the procedure will work.

Bursts of Brain Activity May Protect Against Alzheimer's Disease

Posted: 18 Apr 2013 09:50 AM PDT

Evidence indicates that the accumulation of amyloid-beta proteins, which form the plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, is critical for the development of Alzheimer's disease, which impacts 5.4 million Americans. And not just the quantity, but also the quality of amyloid-beta peptides is crucial for Alzheimer's initiation. The disease is triggered by an imbalance in two different amyloid species — in Alzheimer's patients, there is a reduction in a relative level of healthy amyloid-beta 40 compared to 42.