Thought Experiment

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READY FOR USE IN CLINICAL TRIALS: Comparative PET scan views of a patient with Alzheimer’s disease (left) and an elderly person with no cognitive impairment (right). The red and yellow areas show high concentrations of fluorescent dyes developed to detect amyloid plaques. University of Pittsburgh, pet amyloid imaging group

Ready for Prime Time

By Dennis J. Selkoe and John C. Morris | February 1, 2012

Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease are ready for widespread use in clinical trials.

istockphoto.com, dra_schwartz

Pitch Perfect

By Josephine Johnston | January 1, 2012

Academic detailing has the potential to significantly improve clinical practice.

National Library of Medicine

Puncturing the Myth

By Geoffrey Burnstock | September 1, 2011

Purinergic signaling, not mystical energy, may explain how acupuncture works.

THE MOSAIC BRAIN During development neural stem cells generate committed precursor cells that differentiate into the many specialized neural populations that comprise the adult brain. Mutations can arise at any step in the series of >100 billion cell divisions required to generate the number of neurons found in the fully developed brain, resulting in variably sized populations of neurons that share a unique somatogenetic inheritance. Chances are high that an individual who inherits a recessive mutation in a critical gene will have some subset of neurons in which the same gene is also mutated. This may represent an entire brain structure (e.g., cerebellum), smaller regional structures, or even scattered populations of neurons that migrate throughout the brain after neurogenesis. Lucy Reading-Ikkanda

Deconstructing the Mosaic Brain

By Tom Curran | August 1, 2011

Sequencing the DNA of individual neurons is a way to dissect the genes underlying major neurological and psychological disorders.

Lucy Reading-IKkanda

The Scientist’s Amanuensis

By Peter Murray-Rust and Brian Brooks | July 1, 2011

A virtual lab—where all sorts of parameters are monitored and recorded—promises researchers a higher degree of reproducibility.

06_11_ThoughtEx01

First, Do No Harm…

By Jim Woodgett | May 30, 2011

Is DNA damage an inevitable consequence of epigenetic reprogramming?

Skeleton Keys

By Lewis Wolpert | May 14, 2011

There are a surprising number of unknowns about how our limbs come to be symmetrical.

U.S. Department of Energy Human Genome Program, ornl.gov/hgmis

Medical Publishing for an N of One

By George D. Lundberg | April 1, 2011

New technologies and mind-sets are required for information delivery in the age of genomics.

The Mark of Faith

By Robert E. Kingston | March 1, 2011

Testing a central tenet of epigenetic regulation

Lucy reading-ikkanda

Do Fruit Flies Dream of Electric Bananas?

By Björn Brembs | February 1, 2011

Visualizing neuronal activity in small brains over four dimensions

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