Word: nucleus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Strong evidence that activity changes the brain began accumulating in the 1970s. But only recently have researchers had tools powerful enough to reveal the precise mechanisms by which those changes are brought about. Neural activity triggers a biochemical cascade that reaches all the way to the nucleus of cells and the coils of DNA that encode specific genes. In fact, two of the genes affected by neural activity in embryonic fruit flies, neurobiologist Corey Goodman and his colleagues at Berkeley reported late last year, are identical to those that other studies have linked to learning and memory. How thrilling, exclaims...
...gene therapy, most of the current "smart bombs," as in the case of Ashanthi DeSilva, are viruses, which by their nature invade cells and deposit their genetic material into the cell nucleus. Researchers have learned how to strip the viruses of their reproductive genes, insert into the viral DNA the beneficial gene they want to deliver, and then let the virus infect a patient's cells. The virus inserts its own now harmless genes, as well as the beneficial one, into the cellular DNA. If all goes well and the gene "expresses" itself, the cell begins producing the needed protein...
Recently, positron-emission tomography (PET) scan studies at the UCLA School of Medicine have revealed that either Prozac or cognitive therapy can actually restore normal function in the obsessive-compulsive brain. The scans have documented that ocd patients have abnormal activity in the head of the caudate nucleus, a part of the brain's deep-dwelling basal ganglia, coupled with unusual activity in the orbital prefrontal cortex, just above the eye sockets. The caudate nucleus normally acts as a gatekeeper, determining which thoughts, feelings and behaviors take priority. When it malfunctions, the "worry inputs" generated in the orbital prefrontal region...
...beliefs and his game plan for victory that eventually sold 3.5 million copies. For Buchanan, who read it as a student at Georgetown University, it was "our New Testament." Immediately after the election, activist F. Clifton White organized a meeting of 32 businessmen, lawyers, oilmen and bankers as the nucleus of a drive to nominate a conservative, preferably Goldwater...
What the researchers found was striking. Levels of a powerful brain chemical called dopamine dramatically increased in the outermost shell of the nucleus accumbens, a region that is richly endowed with connections to one of the brain's most important emotional centers, an ancient structure known as the amygdala...