No two neurons are exactly alike. Structure dictates function, so for scientists to fully understand the way different types of neurons work, they must first get to know their forms. Scientists at the Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine at the Research Center Jülich in Jülich, Germany use Neurolucida to perform neuron reconstruction, the most effective method for studying neuron morphology. In their paper “Improved biocytin labeling and...
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There is very little known about Huntington’s disease (HD), a fatal neurodegenerative disease leading to total physical and mental decline that affects 30,000 Americans today. Researchers have been developing transgenic mouse models to mimic human HD. A new model, the zQ175 knock-in, developed by Menalled et al. (2012) appears to more closely mimic human HD progression in the zQ175 KI than previous mouse models. A recently published...
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Neurotrophic factors may be the key to the cure for Parkinson’s, Huntington's, Alzheimer's, and other neurodegenerative disorders. Scientists have known this for over twenty years. But the question continues to loom – how does one safely and effectively deliver the neurotrophic factors to the damaged neurons? Dr. Raymond Bartus and his team at Ceregene, a biotechnology company in San Diego, have developed an innovative approach...
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Dr. Erich Jarvis spends a lot of time with songbirds. At his Duke University lab, Jarvis, a Stereo Investigator user, studies the neurobiology of vocal communication. Since his feathered friends learn song much like humans learn speech, they're a favorite model. But Dr. Jarvis says mice sing too, and new research says they can learn new tunes. “We investigated the mouse song system and discovered that it...
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Some children raised in orphanages grow up to develop social disorders, and there's not all that much modern medicine can do about it. But scientists at Harvard Medical School are working on gaining a better understanding of how early isolation affects a developing brain. Their research gives new insight into the mechanisms at play, and indicates that timing and healthy myelination are crucial. “Social isolation from...
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Commonly used as a human anaesthetic and animal tranquilizer, the experimental drug ketamine became famous in the last two decades as a hallucinatory club drug known as “Special K.” Now, researchers at Yale University say the drug is beneficial in treating depression by increasing synaptic connections in parts of the brain that regulate mood and cognition. Dr. Ronald Duman, who uses Stereo Investigator and Neurolucida at...
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A baby cries and her mother's maternal instincts kick in. She picks her baby up, rocks her, feeds her. Changes in a new mother's brain compel her to act in ways that ensure her baby's survival. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are working on learning more about those changes. Their recent focus is on the olfactory bulb – a region of the brain...
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Long-time MBF customers at the University of Rochester Medical Center are considered leading experts in researching myelin diseases. They recently published a review article in Science titled “Glial Progenitor Cell-Based treatment and Modeling of Neurological Disease” in which they featured output from Stereo Investigator in the Figure 2 section to illustrate chimeric brains. {Glial Progenitor Cell–Based Treatment and Modeling of Neurological Disease Steven A. Goldman, Maiken Nedergaard, and Martha S....
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When it comes to preferred neuron reconstruction systems, Neurolucida “dominated the last decade” according to a paper published earlier this year in Frontiers in Neuroscience. The paper, “Digital reconstructions of neuronal morphology: three decades of research trends" (Halavi et al, 2012), offers an overview of the history of digital neuron reconstruction and presents research trends on specific animal species, brain regions, neuron types, and experimental approaches. Beginning...
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Blue Brain Project researchers have hit an important milestone in their quest to create a virtual model of the human brain. They figured out how to accurately predict the location of synapses in the neocortex; and Neurolucida played an important part. In a paper published last week in PNAS, the research team led by Dr. Henry Markram at the Brain Mind Institute at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale...
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