Cells make costume changes for cardiac regeneration
(Medical Xpress)—If the heart following a heart attack is not sufficiently supplied with blood, heart tissue dies. In adult humans, the ability to heal itself is hardly developed. Scientists from the...
View ArticleBetween B cells and T cells
Mature cells develop through a number of immature stages. During this process, they must remember the specialization they are committed to. For immune system B cells, Rudolf Grosschedl of the Max...
View ArticleNeurobiologists discover elementary motion detectors in the fruit fly
Recognising movement and its direction is one of the first and most important processing steps in any visual system. By this way, nearby predators or prey can be detected and even one's own movements...
View ArticleNew inhibitor blocks the oncogenic protein KRAS
One of the major goals in the development of anti-cancer treatments is to find an inhibitor effective against the oncogenic protein known as KRAS. Despite decades of active agent research, efforts to...
View ArticleNew muscle power from the lab
(Medical Xpress)—Unlike the heart muscle, the musculature of the locomotive organs has the capacity to heal itself. What makes this possible are muscle-specific stem cells known as satellite cells....
View ArticleBiochemical mechanisms of memory
A discovery by a research team led by Ryohei Yasuda at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience has significantly advanced basic understanding of biochemical mechanisms associated with how...
View ArticleLearning brakes in the brain
A brain capable of learning is important for survival: only those who learn can endure in the natural world. When it learns, the brain stores new information by changing the strength of the junctions...
View ArticleMicroRNA molecule modulates behavioural response to stress
Chronic stress influences our mood and behavior. Scientists of the "Max Planck – Weizmann Laboratory for Experimental Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurogenetics" investigated the molecular mechanisms...
View ArticleMolecular profiling of Ketamine's rapid antidepressant effect
One third of the patients with major depressive disorder suffer from treatment resistance and do not respond to commonly used antidepressants. Ketamine, a drug that works through a different mechanism,...
View ArticlePedaling like a Tour de France winner is a losing strategy for most of us
Pedalling like Chris Froome or Alberto Contador might seem appealing, but Oxford University researchers have found that for most of us it's likely to reduce rather than improve our performance.
View ArticleNo cable spaghetti in the brain
Our brain is a mysterious machine. Billions of nerve cells are connected such that they store information as efficiently as books are stored in a well-organized library. To this date, many details...
View ArticleLow physical capacity second only to smoking as highest death risk
A 45 year study in middle-aged men has shown that the impact of low physical capacity on risk of death is second only to smoking. The research is published today in the European Journal of Preventive...
View ArticleOrientation without a master plan: Human spatial memory is made up of...
Spatial memory is something we use and need in our everyday lives. Time for morning coffee? We head straight to the kitchen and know where to find the coffee machine and cups. To do this, we require a...
View ArticleSensor for blood flow discovered in blood vessels
Physical forces like blood pressure and the shear stress of flowing blood are important parameters for the tension of blood vessels. Scientists have been looking for a measurement sensor for many years...
View ArticleEstimating male fertility in eastern and western Germany since 1991
Research on men's birthrates have so far been rather a blind spot. Max Planck researchers have now calculated the missing age data for men using statistical methods. Their figures show that men on...
View ArticleBetter prediction for effectiveness of paroxetine
A third of patients with depression do not respond to the first antidepressant medication prescribed. Currently, the only approach available is one of trial and error. In this study, Max Planck...
View ArticleEpigenetics between the generations: Researchers prove that we inherit more...
We are more than the sum of our genes. Epigenetic mechanisms modulated by environmental cues such as diet, disease or lifestyle take a major role in regulating the DNA by switching genes on and off. It...
View ArticleHigher number of mitochondrial DNA-molecules can compensate for negative...
Male infertility can be caused by mutations in the DNA of mitochondria, the powerhouses of cells. By increasing the total DNA amount in mitochondria, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for...
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