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Department Of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School
The Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, MA. It is consistently ranked as one of the top programs in Neurobiology and behavior in the world. The Department is part of the Basic Research Program at Harvard Medical School, with research pertaining to development of the nervous system, sensory neuroscience, neurophysiology, and behavior. The Department was founded by Stephen W. Kuffler in 1966, the first department dedicated to Neurobiology in the world. The mission of the Department is ''“to understand the workings of the brain through basic research and to use that knowledge to work toward preventive and therapeutic methods that alleviate neurological diseases”.'' History Prior to moving to Boston, while at Johns Hopkins University, Kuffler recruited Torsten N. Wiesel, David Hubel, David Potter, and Edwin Furshpan to work on various aspects of nerve physiology. As Hubel later recounted, Wiesel, Hubel, and Kuffl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neurobiology
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, psychology, physics, computer science, chemistry, medicine, statistics, and mathematical modeling to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons, glia and neural circuits. The understanding of the biological basis of learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness has been described by Eric Kandel as the "epic challenge" of the biological sciences. The scope of neuroscience has broadened over time to include different approaches used to study the nervous system at different scales. The techniques used by neuroscientists have expanded enormously, from molecular and cellular studies of individual neurons to imaging of sensory, motor and cognitive tasks in the brain. History The earliest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, Worcester, and Springfield. It is one of two de jure county seats of Middlesex County, although the county's executive government was abolished in 1997. Situated directly north of Boston, across the Charles River, it was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, once also an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lesley University, and Hult International Business School are in Cambridge, as was Radcliffe College before it merged with Harvard. Kendall Square in Cambridge has been called "the most innovative square mile on the planet" owing to the high concentration of successful startups that have emerged in the vicinity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CRY2
Cryptochromes (from the Greek κρυπτός χρώμα, "hidden colour") are a class of flavoproteins found in plants and animals that are sensitive to blue light. They are involved in the circadian rhythms and the sensing of magnetic fields in a number of species. The name ''cryptochrome'' was proposed as a ''portmanteau'' combining the ''chromatic'' nature of the photoreceptor, and the ''cryptogamic'' organisms on which many blue-light studies were carried out. The two genes ''Cry1'' and ''Cry2'' code the two cryptochrome proteins CRY1 and CRY2. In insects and plants, CRY1 regulates the circadian clock in a light-dependent fashion, whereas in mammals, CRY1 and CRY2 act as light-independent inhibitors of CLOCK-BMAL1 components of the circadian clock. In plants, blue-light photoreception can be used to cue developmental signals. Besides chlorophylls, cryptochromes are the only proteins known to form photoinduced radical-pairs ''in vivo''. These appear to enable some animals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptochrome
Cryptochromes (from the Greek κρυπτός χρώμα, "hidden colour") are a class of flavoproteins found in plants and animals that are sensitive to blue light. They are involved in the circadian rhythms and the sensing of magnetic fields in a number of species. The name ''cryptochrome'' was proposed as a ''portmanteau'' combining the '' chromatic'' nature of the photoreceptor, and the ''cryptogamic'' organisms on which many blue-light studies were carried out. The two genes ''Cry1'' and ''Cry2'' code the two cryptochrome proteins CRY1 and CRY2. In insects and plants, CRY1 regulates the circadian clock in a light-dependent fashion, whereas in mammals, CRY1 and CRY2 act as light-independent inhibitors of CLOCK-BMAL1 components of the circadian clock. In plants, blue-light photoreception can be used to cue developmental signals. Besides chlorophylls, cryptochromes are the only proteins known to form photoinduced radical-pairs ''in vivo''. These appear to enable some animal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blood–brain Barrier
The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is a highly selective semipermeable membrane, semipermeable border of endothelium, endothelial cells that prevents solutes in the circulating blood from ''non-selectively'' crossing into the extracellular fluid of the central nervous system where neurons reside. The blood–brain barrier is formed by endothelial cells of the Capillary, capillary wall, astrocyte end-feet ensheathing the capillary, and pericytes embedded in the capillary basement membrane. This system allows the passage of some small molecules by passive transport, passive diffusion, as well as the selective and active transport of various nutrients, ions, organic anions, and macromolecules such as glucose and amino acids that are crucial to neural function. The blood–brain barrier restricts the passage of pathogens, the diffusion of solutes in the blood, and Molecular mass, large or Hydrophile, hydrophilic molecules into the cerebrospinal fluid, while allowing the diffusion of Hydr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ketogenic Diet
The ketogenic diet is a high- fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate dietary therapy that in conventional medicine is used mainly to treat hard-to-control (refractory) epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates. Normally carbohydrates in food are converted into glucose, which is then transported around the body and is important in fueling brain function. However, if only a little carbohydrate remains in the diet, the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies, the latter passing into the brain and replacing glucose as an energy source. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood (a state called ketosis) eventually lowers the frequency of epileptic seizures. Around half of children and young people with epilepsy who have tried some form of this diet saw the number of seizures drop by at least half, and the effect persists after discontinuing the diet. Some evidence shows that adults with epilepsy may benefit from the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enhancer RNAs
Enhancer RNAs (eRNAs) represent a class of relatively long non-coding RNA molecules (50-2000 nucleotides) transcribed from the DNA sequence of enhancer regions. They were first detected in 2010 through the use of genome-wide techniques such as RNA-seq and ChIP-seq. eRNAs can be subdivided into two main classes: 1D eRNAs and 2D eRNAs, which differ primarily in terms of their size, polyadenylation state, and transcriptional directionality. The expression of a given eRNA correlates with the activity of its corresponding enhancer in target genes. Increasing evidence suggests that eRNAs actively play a role in transcriptional regulation in cis and in trans, and while their mechanisms of action remain unclear, a few models have been proposed. Discovery Enhancers as sites of extragenic transcription were initially discovered in genome-wide studies that identified enhancers as common regions of RNA polymerase II (RNA pol II) binding and non-coding RNA transcription. The level of RNA po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hair Cell
Hair cells are the sensory receptors of both the auditory system and the vestibular system in the ears of all vertebrates, and in the lateral line organ of fishes. Through mechanotransduction, hair cells detect movement in their environment. In mammals, the auditory hair cells are located within the spiral organ of Corti on the thin basilar membrane in the cochlea of the inner ear. They derive their name from the tufts of stereocilia called ''hair bundles'' that protrude from the apical surface of the cell into the fluid-filled cochlear duct. The stereocilia number from 50-100 in each cell while being tightly packed together and decrease in size the further away they are located from the kinocilium. The hair bundles are arranged as stiff columns that move at their base in response to stimuli applied to the tips. Mammalian cochlear hair cells are of two anatomically and functionally distinct types, known as outer, and inner hair cells. Damage to these hair cells results in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Sensitization
Nociplastic pain or central sensitisation is a type of pain which is mechanically different from the normal nociceptive pain caused by inflammation and tissue damage or the neuropathic pain which results from nerve damage. It may occur in combination with the other types of pain or in isolation. Its location may be generalised or multifocal and it can be more intense than would be expected from any associated physical cause. Its causes are not fully understood but it is thought to be a dysfunction of the central nervous system whose processing of pain signals may have become distorted or sensitised. The concept and term was formally added to the taxonomy of the International Association for the Study of Pain following the recommendation of a task force in 2017. The root terms are Latin ''nocēre'', meaning to hurt, and Greek ''πλαστός'', meaning development or formation in a medical context. This type of pain typically arises in some chronic pain conditions, with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nobel Prize In Physiology Or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's 1895 will, are awarded "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. The Nobel Prize is presented annually on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, 10 December. As of 2022, 114 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have been awarded to 226 laureates, 214 men and 12 women. The first one was awarded in 1901 to the German physiologist, Emil von Behring, for his work on serum therapy and the development of a vaccine against diphtheria. The first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Gerty Cori, received it in 1947 for her role in elucidati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orientation Selectivity
Orientation selectivity is expressed by cells within the visual cortex, when such cells increase impulse or signal activity for specific oriented degree of shape presented within the visual field. Orientation selectivity can also be expressed by simple cells if the orientation of a stimulus is orthogonal to the preferred degree of orientation, which results in the inhibition of impulse activity. Orientation testing Single receptive field cells across the retina, LGN, and primary visual cortex are in a state of continuous neurotransmission. Impulse activity is the continuous state of regular and constant neurotransmission between neurons. Tests conducted by David H. Hubel and Torsten N. Wiesel (1968) utilized a single light dot presented within the visual field of a house cat to map out the location of a cell's receptive field within the cat's visual field. Once the receptive field of a cell had been completely mapped out, it was found that some of the simple cell receptive fie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
