cells Archives - Page 3 of 6 - Family Medicine News

Why screen time can disrupt sleep—scientists uncover how certain retinal cells respond to artificial illumination

28.11.2018 Health Problems

For most, the time spent staring at screens—on computers, phones, iPads—constitutes many hours and can often disrupt sleep. Now, Salk Institute researchers have pinpointed how certain cells in the eye process ambient light and reset our internal clocks, the daily cycles of physiological processes known as the circadian rhythm. When these cells are exposed to artificial light late into the […]

Proteins cooperate to break up energy structures in oxygen starved heart cells

19.11.2018 Health Problems

During a heart attack, the supply of oxygen to heart cells is decreased. This reduced oxygen level, called hypoxia, causes the cell’s powerhouses, the mitochondria, to fragment, impairing cell function and leading to heart failure. Until now, few details have been known about how this process occurs. Researchers at the National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Japan, have revealed how filamin […]

Immune cells trigger OCD-like behaviour in multiple sclerosis, study finds

10.11.2018 Health Problems

A class of cells that defends the body against invaders also triggers obsessive-compulsive behaviour that appears in autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS), a new study from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has found. Autoimmune disorders, in which the body’s immune system goes rogue and attacks healthy cells, are difficult to treat. MS, for example, is a debilitating […]

Cells in ‘little brain’ have distinctive metabolic needs

11.10.2018 Health Problems

Cells’ metabolic needs are not uniform across the brain, researchers have learned. “Knocking out” an enzyme that regulates mitochondria, cells’ miniature power plants, specifically blocks the development of the mouse cerebellum more than the rest of the brain. The results are scheduled for publication in Science Advances. “This finding will be tremendously helpful in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying developmental […]

Stem cells control their own fate, making lab-grown tissues less effective

05.10.2018 Health Problems

Tissues grown in the lab from stem cells may fail to live up their therapeutic promise because the cells choose their own fate. For the last 20 years, scientists have worked to engineer tissues for use in a range of conditions, such as osteoarthritis or heart failure. They do this by placing stem cells – those that can become any […]

Human hair cells from a test tube

04.10.2018 Health Problems

Researchers from the University of Bern and Bern University Hospital have managed for the first time to differentiate human inner ear cells in a laboratory from somatic progenitors and to investigate their origin. This will make it possible to develop new treatment methods for hearing impairment in the future. About 5% of the world population suffers from hearing impairment. Disabling […]

Can we teach heart cells to grow up?

27.09.2018 Health Problems

Scientists around the world have been trying to replace damaged heart tissue using lab-made heart-muscle cells (cardiomyocytes), either injecting them into the heart or applying patches laced with the cells. But results to date have been underwhelming. “If you make cardiomyocytes in a dish from pluripotent stem cells, they will engraft in the heart and form muscle,” says William Pu, MD, […]

Nerve cells in the human brain can ‘count’

21.09.2018 Health Problems

How do we know if we’re looking at three apples or four? Researchers at the Universities of Bonn and Tübingen are now one step closer to answering this question. They were able to demonstrate that some brain cells fire mainly for quantities of three, others for quantities of four and others for other quantities. A similar effect can be observed […]

Zombie cells found in brains of mice prior to cognitive loss

19.09.2018 Health Problems

Zombie cells are the ones that can’t die but are equally unable to perform the functions of a normal cell. These zombie, or senescent, cells are implicated in a number of age-related diseases. And with a new letter in Nature, Mayo Clinic researchers have expanded that list. In a mouse model of brain disease, scientists report that senescent cells accumulate […]

Heart attack: Substitute muscle thanks to stem cells

12.09.2018 Health Problems

Myocardial infarction – commonly known as a heart attack – is still one of the main causes of death. According to the Federal Statistical Office, more than 49,00 people died of its consequences. And yet the mortality after heart attack has greatly decreased over the past decades: As compared to the early 1990s, it has more than halved until 2015, […]

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