Sentences with phrase «brain genes for»

Fathers could also silence brain genes for their own evolutionary benefit.

Not exact matches

Erzen writes that «studies such as those of Simon LeVay and Dean Hamer, which argue that a gay brain or gay genes exist, are revered as the basis for a minority identity and entrance into U.S. civil rights discourse.»

On the contrary, he finds it useful to ponder an array of reductionist attempts to explain the existence of religion, from that which seeks to pinpoint the area of the human brain or the specific genes connected to religiosity to that which sees religion as a malfunction of the human mind or a vestigial remnant from a primitive stage of human development suitable only for whimpering, immature dullards (a point of view championed by the new atheists).

It is for this reason that utopian thinking led some of its modern promoters, such as Arthur Koestler and Carl Sagan, to propose ways of «improving» human beings by biological manipulation such as surgical removal of certain centers in the brain or by genetic engineering to remove «bad» genes.

Blakemore argues that a single gene mutation could in fact have been the cause of this increase - for in fact only one extra cell - division step would cause a doubling of brain size.

Similar mechanisms are found in human brains — caregiver behavior matters for turning genes on and off.

The disruption of prenatal cellular activity in zebra fish, which share 80 percent of their genes with humans and are considered a good model for studying human brain development, seemed to result in hyperactivity, according to the Canadian study, which was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(Some research has homed in on a gene that codes for a transporter of the brain chemical serotonin.)

«We wondered whether some of those same genes could also cause seizures if they were expressed in the brain and, if so, whether those genes would also place people with epilepsy at risk not only for having epilepsy but also an abnormal heart beat and risk of death,» said Noebels.

«Some people are protected from the effects of sleep deprivation by this particular gene variation but, for most of us, sleep loss does something to the brain that simply prevents us from switching gears when circumstances change.»

The researchers then found that these same genes carry an additional risk for a phenomenon called spreading depolarization, a slowly - progressing, temporary electrical blackout of a region in the brain.

There has been considerable interest, for example, in a gene that produces low levels of an enzyme called monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) in the brain.

Gene therapy delivered to a specific part of the brain reverses symptoms of depression in a mouse model of the disease — potentially laying the groundwork for a new approach to treating severe cases of human depression in which drugs are ineffective.

Michael Kaplitt, a neurosurgeon at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, whose lab develops gene therapies for brain disorders, teamed up with Greengard and other colleagues in the new study.

Because this imprinting affects hundreds of genes that are non-coding, including microRNAs and non-coding RNAs, it's a very interesting fine - tuning mechanism for the dosage of gene expression in the brain and elsewhere in the body.»

The gene is a known risk factor for psychiatric disorders, and is required to maintain healthy neurotransmitter levels in the brain.

Apparently, NPAS4 accounts for some addiction - related learning and memory processes in the brain, but not all of them, meaning that HDAC5 must be regulating additional genes that reduce relapse events.

The gene for NPAS4 was a top hit, and significant for an important reason: it is an early - onset gene, meaning that its effects could be exerted on the brain rapidly unless HDAC5 was there to inhibit it — just the molecular event Cowan and his team were seeking.

Previous studies have reported changes to the brain while people practise these activities, but a new study shows for the first time that gene activity changes too.

What's more, the gene codes for a chemical receptor involved in many brain functions, such as learning and memory, so the gene might also be involved in behavioral disorders.

The study, which is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, describes a possible mechanism for how the gene variant produces clinical symptoms by affecting levels of specific proteins in the brain.

The mice, which move backwards when they try to walk forwards on a smooth surface, have a gene for a mutated protein that prompts neurons in the cerebellum, a brain area that controls movement and balance, to die off.

Knowing what the master genes are could give scientists targets for new pharmaceuticals to treat brain diseases.

More and more, researchers are finding that an extra bit of a vitamin, a brief exposure to a toxin, even an added dose of mothering can tweak the epigenome — and thereby alter the software of our genes — in ways that affect an individual's body and brain for life.

Damage to human chromosome 9 (of the cell's 24 pairs) where the gene that codes for E-NTPDase2 resides is known to cause eye and brain defects, such as microphthalmia — literally, small eyes.

Page and his colleagues, who use animal models to understand how autism risk factors impact the developing brain and to identify potential treatments for the condition, have found that animals with mutations in the autism risk gene phosphatase and tensin homolog (Pten) mimic aspects of autism, including increased brain size, social deficits and increased repetitive behavior.

The finding suggests that other AAVs used for a gene therapy targeting the brain or spinal cord might be improved by having the same or a similar set of amino acids.

For them, the discovery of how an individual becomes gay is likely to shed light on how sexuality - related genes build brains, how people of any persuasion are attracted to each other, and perhaps even how homosexuality evolved.

«Enigmatic gene critical for a healthy brain: New research has shown how an unusual gene is needed for brain development in young mice.»

Steve: So you might have a gene for a particular brain receptor or, I think what you talk about in the article is not actually the structure of the receptor molecule, but the amount of receptors that you actually produce?

The KAP1 protein acts as a regulator for several other genes which allow the brain to grow healthily and develop several types of brain cell.

Yang said the study not only indicated which genes are affected by traumatic brain injury and linked to serious disease, but also might point to the genes that govern metabolism, cell communication and inflammation — which might make them the best targets for new treatments for brain disorders.

«We believe these master genes are responsible for traumatic brain injury adversely triggering changes in many other genes,» said Xia Yang, a senior author of the study and a UCLA associate professor of integrative biology and physiology.

Their results showed that AF was associated with smaller frontal lobe volumes, even after adjusting for age, gender, vascular risk factors and APOE4 (a gene independently linked to smaller brain volumes).

«Steep funding cuts for the federal health agencies are counterproductive at a time when innovative research is moving us closer to identifying solutions for rare diseases, new prevention strategies to protect Americans from deadly and costly conditions, advances in gene therapy, new technologies for understanding the brain, and treatments that harness the ability of our immune system to fight cancer.»

The activity of four transcription factors — proteins that regulate the expression of other genes — appears to distinguish the small proportion of glioblastoma cells responsible for the aggressiveness and treatment resistance of the deadly brain tumor.

For example, mice have been given an extra color vision gene in the lab, and it has been shown that the protein manufactured by that gene expands the scope of their vision by enhancing their ability to see longer - wavelength light without any other changes in the brain.

In a new study published in The Quarterly Review of Biology, Dr. Karen Hardy and her team bring together archaeological, anthropological, genetic, physiological and anatomical data to argue that carbohydrate consumption, particularly in the form of starch, was critical for the accelerated expansion of the human brain over the last million years, and coevolved both with copy number variation of the salivary amylase genes and controlled fire use for cooking.

To discover this, Hui Liu, Gene Robinson, and Eric Jakobsson of the University of Illinois developed new computational tools to analyze patterns of gene conservation across a wide range of animals, for genes activated and inhibited in the honey bee brain by exposure to a chemical communication signal that triggers alGene Robinson, and Eric Jakobsson of the University of Illinois developed new computational tools to analyze patterns of gene conservation across a wide range of animals, for genes activated and inhibited in the honey bee brain by exposure to a chemical communication signal that triggers algene conservation across a wide range of animals, for genes activated and inhibited in the honey bee brain by exposure to a chemical communication signal that triggers alarm.

«Our approach to gene silencing has not been demonstrated before in such a powerful way for the treatment of brain cancers,» Stegh said.

In another group, the disabled gene made it difficult for fly brain cells to reinforce new connections that encode memories.

Another connects post-traumatic stress disorder to methylation of the gene coding for neurotrophic factor, a protein that regulates the growth of neurons in the brain.

«We used the Allen Human Brain Atlas data to quantify how consistent the patterns of expression for various genes are across human brains, and to determine the importance of the most consistent and reproducible genes for brain function.&rBrain Atlas data to quantify how consistent the patterns of expression for various genes are across human brains, and to determine the importance of the most consistent and reproducible genes for brain function.&rbrain function.»

Besides differences in genes linked to brain development, Erik Axelsson of Uppsala University in Sweden and colleagues found three genes in dogs that are vital for digestion and extend their ancestral carnivorous diet to include starch (Nature, DOI: 10.1038 / nature11837).

Perhaps most significantly, in a study led by Frances Champagne — then a graduate student in Meaney's lab, now an associate professor with her own lab at Columbia University in New York — they found that inattentive mothering in rodents causes methylation of the genes for estrogen receptors in the brain.

«The human brain is phenomenally complex, so it is quite surprising that a small number of patterns can explain most of the gene variability across the brain,» says Christof Koch, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Scibrain is phenomenally complex, so it is quite surprising that a small number of patterns can explain most of the gene variability across the brain,» says Christof Koch, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Scibrain,» says Christof Koch, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain SciBrain Science.

Korenberg was convinced that with Mills» approach of directly measuring the brain's electrical firing they could solve the puzzle of precisely which genes were responsible for building the brain wiring underlying the different reaction to human faces in Williams syndrome.

Then, 15 years ago, Shatz stumbled across genes coding for MHCI in fetal cat brains.

«Americans worried about using gene editing, brain chip implants and synthetic blood: US adults show more concern than enthusiasm for using these to «enhance» human abilities.»

Mutation of this gene, which leads to decreased GCase activity in the brain, has been found to be a genetic risk factor for Parkinson's, although the majority of patients with Parkinson's do not carry mutations in the Gaucher gene.