Nerve Cells

Using gene therapy, a research team has succeeded for the first time in getting mice to walk again after a complete cross-sectional injury. The nerve cells produced the curative protein themselves. To date, paralysis resulting from spinal cord damage has been irreparable. With a new therapeutic appr more

Using post-mortem tissue samples, a team of researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have studied the mechanisms by which the novel coronavirus can reach the brains of patients with COVID-19, and how the immune system responds to the virus once it does. The results, which show that SARS more

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease of the nervous system which affects more than two million people worldwide. In the course of the disease, the immune system attacks the insulation layer of nerve cells, and centers of inflammation develop in the brain and spinal cord, which over time more

In his novel "Perfume - the Story of a Murderer", Patrick Süskind managed to put the power of odors into words better than anyone before him more

by Deena R. Schmidt, Roberto F. Galán, Peter J. Thomas Nerve cells produce electrical impulses (“spikes”) through the coordinated opening and closing of ion channels. Markov processes with voltage-dependent transition rates capture the stochasticity of spike generation at the cost of complex, tim more

by Alexander Borst Seeing the direction of motion is essential for survival of all sighted animals. Consequently, nerve cells that respond to visual stimuli moving in one but not in the opposite direction, so-called ‘direction-selective’ neurons, are found abundantly. In general, direction select more

Three nearly identical genes could help explain why the ancestral human brain tripled in size over the course of human evolution. The genes, descendants of an ancient developmental gene that multiplied and changed over time, could also explain how brain development sometimes goes wrong, leading to n more