A gene essential for information storage in the brain engages an autoregulatory feedback loop to consolidate memory.

The single-celled fungus allows researchers to study Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS and other brain diseases with unparalleled speed and scale.

Two rodent models of glaucoma have defects in the waste drainage system.

Once thought only to attack neurons, immune cells turn out to be vital for central nervous system function.

Protein appears to protect stressed neurons; vitamin A’s lifelong effects on immunity; stem cells influenced by substrates; supercharged photosynthesis through nanotechnology

Visualizing neuronal connections is highly important for understanding brain organization and pathophysiology. However, this data has historically been obtained through invasive and often terminal procedures. Technological advances have permitted the development of a new era of neuroanatomical tracing techniques.   

In 1977, Alzheimer Disease researcher Peter Davies spoke with some neurologists about his work, which he began a year earlier. "One [neurologist] said, 'This is lovely..., but why don't you work on something that is more common?'" he remembers. Davies says the comment epitomized scientists' then-dismissive attitude about Alzheimer Disease (AD). When Alois Alzheimer first identified this memory-destroying disorder in 1907, his patient was a 50-year-old woman; a very early age, as researchers now

Caspase Related Reagents Courtesy of Bingren Hu, Queen's Medical Center, Hawaii. Provided by Cell Signaling TechnologyConfocal micrograph of double immunostaining for cleaved caspase-3 (green) and propidium iodide (red) in newborn rat brain tissue. This section shows control and transient cerebral ischemia. Editor's Note: This is the second article in our two-part series on cell death. The first part: J. Cortese, "Death watch I: Cytotoxicity detection," The Scientist, 15[5]:26, March 5, 2001.

Date: February 1, 1999Table of Confocal Microscope Manufacturers Perhaps in few other fields has the creation of an instrument been so important to the establishment of a new theory or discipline. Even the Galilean telescope, with its revelation of the Medicean moons, does not compare to the microscope because the foundation for astronomy had already been well established by naked-eye observation. Cell theory, by contrast, had no such foundation in anecdotal experience. However, it wasn't long