neuron

Imagine a bathtub with two soap bubbles colliding but never fusing. Then you add detergent, and the surface of the water goes flat as the walls of the bubbles collapse and merge.

Scientists have used that analogy to describe the action of synaptotagmin-1, which acts to catalyze the fusion of the membranes of tiny neurotransmitter-filled bubbles called vesicles with the wall membrane of a neuron.

This action allows signals to flow between neurons.

Fruit flies fine-tune their olfactory systems by recalibrating the sensitivity of different odor channels in response to changing concentrations of environmental cues, a new study has shown.

Disable this calibration system, and flies have trouble finding a mate, the researchers have found. The fly nervous system can dampen its response to intense smells to prevent strong signals from overloading the circuits, they report in the July 31 issue of Neuron.

A typical symptom of Parkinson's disease is tremor in patients. Scientists have succeeded in demonstrating the mechanisms which cause the so-called tremor: neuron clusters in the depths of the brain drive the tremor.

This discovery supports Tass' research activities aiming at developing a therapy for Parkinson's disease. A new deep brain pacemaker has been developed with the aim of bringing cells out of the diseased mode for good.

Thanks to salt and hot chili peppers, researchers have found a calculus-computing center that tells a roundworm to go forward toward dinner or turn to broaden the search.

It's a computational mechanism, they say, that is similar to what drives hungry college students to a pizza.

A computer-like mechanism drives neuron expression for taste and smell.

The receptors of neurotransmitters move very rapidly. This mobility plays an essential, and hitherto unsuspected, role in the passage of nerve impulses from one neuron to another, thus controlling the reliability of data transfer.

Chronic inflammation triggers bone marrow-derived blood cells to travel to the brain and fuse with a certain type of neuron up to 100 times more frequently than previously believed.

Repeatedly stimulating the mouse brain with methamphetamine depresses important areas of the brain, and those changes can only be undone by reintroducing the drug, according to research at the University of Washington and other institutions.

The study, published in the journal Neuron, provides one of the most in-depth views of the mechanisms of methamphetamine addiction, and suggests that withdrawal from the drug may not undo the changes the stimulant can cause in the brain.

An increased number of neuron "hubs" in the epileptic brain may be the root cause for the seizures that characterize the disorder, according to a new study.

Scientists have identified that these hubs -- a small number of highly connected neurons -- are formed in the hippocampus during the transition from a healthy brain to an epileptic one.

Researchers have discovered that neurons can use two different neurotransmitters that target the same receptor on a receiving neuron to shape the transmission of a nerve impulse.