Huntingtonâ€™s disease

Implicating Myelin in Early Evolution of Huntington's Disease

harminka — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:41:40 -0500

Last month, Dr. George Bartzokis, director of the UCLA Memory Disorders and Alzheimer's Disease Clinic, suggested in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia that the breakdown of a type of myelin that develops late in life promotes the buildup of toxic amyloid plaques long associated with Alzheimer's disease. Myelin is the "insulation" that wraps around nerve axons in the brain.

Cancer drug enhances long-term memory

harminka — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:40:04 -0500

A drug used to treat cancer has been shown to enhance long-term memory and strengthen neural connections in the brain, according to a new study by UC Irvine scientists.

First images of brain changes associated with memory

harminka — Thu, 17 May 2007 07:54:11 -0500

University of California, Irvine researchers have developed the first images of the physical changes in brain cells thought to underlie memory, a discovery that is already uncovering clues about memory loss linked to cognitive disorders.

Protein interactions targets for Huntington disease therapy

harminka — Thu, 10 May 2007 23:57:24 -0500

The identification of more than 200 new proteins that interact with the mutated protein that causes Huntington's disease opens the door to developing treatments for the fatal neurodegenerative disorder, said a Baylor College of Medicine researcher who took part in the work that appears online today in the journal Public Library of Science Genetics.

Scientists find new agent to fight genetic disorders

harminka — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:11:45 -0500

A study to appear in the June 2007 issue of The FASEB Journal describes a new agent, called "Zorro-LNA," which has the potential to stop genetic disorders in their tracks. In the study, researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, describe how they developed Zorro-LNA to bind with both strands of a gene's DNA simultaneously, effectively disabling that gene.

Poor gene repair may point to cause of incurable disease

harminka — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 02:38:00 -0500

Mayo Clinic researchers, along with collaborators from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and University of Oslo, Norway, have discovered that a miscue of the body's genetic repair system may cause Huntington's disease, a fatal condition that affects 30,000 Americans annually by destroying their nervous system. Until now, no one knew how Huntington's begins, only that it is incurable.

Study links faulty DNA repair to Huntington's disease onset

harminka — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 02:26:27 -0500

Huntington's disease, an inherited neurodegenerative disorder that affects roughly 30,000 Americans, is incurable and fatal. But a new discovery about how cells repair their DNA points to a possible way to stop or slow the onset of the disease. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

New treatment possibilities for fatal genetic disease

harminka — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:17:57 -0500

Researchers at Melbourne's Howard Florey Institute have opened up new treatment possibilities for Huntington's disease by proving a scientific theory incorrect.