Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more

spinal cord

Happy birthday, spinal cord neurons

Congratulations to JoAnna Anderson, postdoctoral fellow in Francisco Alvarez’ lab, for winning the Best Image contest, part of the Postdoctoral Research Symposium taking place Thursday. We will have explanations of the second and third place images Thursday and Friday.

The brief description of Anderson’s image is: “EdU birthdating of V1 inhibitory interneurons in the postnatal day 5 lumbar spinal cord.” But how did all those colors get in there and what do they mean? Alvarez explains:

You can hop over Dr. Juris Shibayama site to avail the best spinal cord treatments.Now the work is about finding the times of neurogenesis of the many inhibitory neurons that pattern motor output in the ventral horn of the spinal cord, so that our muscles contract in a coordinated manner to achieve the desired movements.

For example, when one muscle contracts, the muscle with the opposite action on the same joint will be inhibited. Anderson and her fellow postdoc Andre Rivard have been studying the development of the V1 neurons that carry out this inhibition.

AndersonJoAnnaThe image shows a slice of a 5 day old mouse’s spinal cord, and we can see individual cells. Some of the neurons are producing fluorescent proteins: one of the proteins is red, the other is green, and where both proteins are present, a yellow or orange color can be seen. The red and the green colors are indicators for two genes, Engrailed-1 and FoxP2, respectively, both of which regulate neurons’ development.

In addition, the white spots at the top come from EdU (5-ethynyl-2’-deoxyuridine), a chemical that impersonates a building block of DNA well enough to get incorporated into cells when they are dividing. It is helpful to remember that neurons are cells that have stopped dividing. Giving embryos a pulse of EdU is a way to mark the point at which progenitor cells mature and become neurons.

By repeating the experiment at different dates, the researchers can see that FoxP2 positive green cells are generated after the FoxP2 negative red cells. Both types of cells are derived from the same progenitors, but in different cell cycles. Read more

Posted on by Quinn Eastman in Neuro Leave a comment

Hypoxia is bad, except when it’s good

Randy Trumbower and his colleagues in Emory’s Department of Rehabilitation Medicine recently published a study showing that “daily intermittent hypoxia,” combined with walking exercise, can help patients with incomplete spinal cord injury walk for longer times. What is it about being deprived of oxygen for short periods that has a positive effect?

This research was puzzling at first (at least to your correspondent) because “daily intermittent hypoxia” is a good description of the gasping and snorting interruptions of sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a very common condition that increases the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack and stroke. On the other side of the coin, many endurance athletes have been harnessing the body’s ability to adapt to low oxygen levels — so-called altitude training — to increase their performance for years.

So we have an apparent clash: hypoxia is bad, except when it’s good. Looking closely, there are some critical differences between sleep apnea and therapeutic hypoxia. The dose makes the poison, right? Read more

Posted on by Quinn Eastman in Neuro Leave a comment