Indeed, before the meeting in Washing-ton DC, these individuals held solid reason for concern. The " adult " stem cell described by Caplan and Pittenger 1,2 as a mesodermal or mesenchymal stem cell had not been widely publicized as a replacement for embryonic stem cells at all. Most hematologists, who by and large controlled the stem cell field, considered these cells to be laboratory artifacts...

The study of synchronization in oscillator networks has the potential to improve treatment of synchronization-based neural disorders, including epilepsy and Parkinsons disease. With this aim, application of control theory to synchronized neuronal network models has produced a method for desynchronization in the special case of a fully connected network [1]. Here, we investigate synchronization ...

Gait impairment is one of the consequences of events like stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury or neurodegenerative diseases like Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinsons' Disease. The restoration and improvement of walking functions is one of the primary concerns of the rehabilitation of neurological Patients. To achieve this goal, a task specific repetitive training seems the most promi...

Stephen T. Mernoff, MD, FAAN, and Albert C. Lo, MD, PhD  stroke Is A mAjor cAuse of neurologIcAl impairment; over half of stroke survivors have persistent upper limb impairment, and 25-50% of stroke survivors have persistent moderate to severe disability, especially in the realms of motor and language functions after completion of standard rehabilitation. The prevalence of stroke survivors was...

When patients present with lower urinary tract symptoms (urgency, frequency, nocturia, slow stream, hesitancy, sense of incomplete emptying, post-void dribbling), urinary incontinence (stress and urge), urinary retention, dysuria, and/or bladder pain, the urologist would be the most appropriate specialist to evaluate and treat these patients. These symptoms will be collectively labeled as “urov...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD) are defined by neurodegeneration and accumulations of misfolded proteins that spread through the brain in a well characterized manner. In AD these accumulations consist mainly of βamyloid (Aβ) and tau, while in PD, α-synuclein (α-syn) make up the characteristic lewy pathology. The general aim of this thesis was to investigate mechanisms asso...

Introduction Parkinson disease is a clinically defined syndrome, characterized by variable combinations of akinesia, rigidity, tremor and postural instability. These symptoms are caused by a degeneration of dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra, leading to a deficiency of dopamine in their striatal projection areas. Characteristic eosinophilic inclusions, the Lewy bodies, are found in su...

We present a panoramic view of the utility of coarse-grained (CG) models to study folding and functions of proteins and RNA. Drawing largely on the methods developed in our group over the last twenty years, we describe a number of key applications ranging from folding of proteins with disulfide bonds to functions of molecular machines. After presenting the theoretical basis that justifies the u...

The olfactory epithelium (OE) is a useful model to study neurogenesis because of the sustained ability for self-repair throughout adult life. The main aim of this study was to investigate putative neuroprotective roles of fractalkine/CX3CL1 signalling in the olfactory epithelium after experimentally-induced cell death and replacement of olfactory sensory neurons. Previous studies have shown tha...

This year’s ISMB conference, an annual event organised by the International Society for Computational Biology (http://www.iscb.org) was the biggest ever, with over 1400 delegates. The venue was also a first, situated, as it was, in Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens funfair. However there was still time for the many satellite meetings that flanked the conference including the Bio Pathways conference, ...